GALLANT RESCUES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6052, 11 April 1881, Page 5

GALLANT RESCUES.

A very gallant rescue of a child from drowning was accomplished on Saturday afternoon. Two sons of Mr. F. J. Sliortt, aged nine and seven, who obtained leave to go cricketing on Barrack Hill, found their way down to the waterside by the Timber Company's mill. The younger child missed his footing and fell into ten feet of water. A young man named Mr. Robert Wilkinson, of Newton, was near the place, and, seeing the accident, at once divested himself of his coat and swam to the rescue. He succeeded in bearing the child to the side of a schooner, where both were taken on board and sent ashore. The young man who had behaved so gallantly even lent the child his own hat to go home in. The parents of the boy request that their thanks shall be publicly expressed to Mr. Wilkinson, who saved their child from an early death. Another case of a similar nature occurred yesterday. A child, ten years of age, named Walter Kirby, was with his sister playing on the wharf, when suddenly the little fellow tumbled overboard. As he fell his scream aroused the attention of a man, named Mr. John Harrison, who was on the opposite side of the wharf. On hearing the cry, without a moment's hesitation he rushed across the wharf, divesting himself of his coat on the way, and plunged in, and before the child had sunk manyfeet his rescuer had hold of him and brought him to the surface. Several boats went to the spot, and Harrison and the child were picked up by Barron's waterman's boat, and brought to the wharf landing. The child appeared to be none the worse °for his ducking, and his only regret was that his hat was floating away. Mr. Harrison, who so gallantly rescued the lad, was one of those who was recently wrecked in the Jane at Whangarei, and he has just joined the ship Sydenham, now in port.