TWO MEN DECAPITATED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9437, 7 August 1889, Page 5

TWO MEN DECAPITATED.

A timuuijlk accident occurred recently at the Palace Hotel, Bourke-street, Melbourne, by which two men lost their lives on a luggage lift. This lift is accessible from the outside of the building by a passage leading into Royal Lane, a stout iron gate 8 feet high barring the entrance at night. The lift is a mere frame without sides or top, and it is fitted in a groove which works in upright beams. It is usually kept at a height of 20 feet from the ground, so as not to obstruct the passage to the kitchen. By pulling the wire rope it is set in motion and stopped. Shortly after 7 o'clock a butcher called with meat. He pointed out that the lift was not in its usual position, and on looking closer he observed two men in it whom he supposed to bo asleep. On attempting to lower the lift he found it jammed, and became conscious that something wrong had happened. The police were called in, and the lift was brought down, when a shocking spectacle was disclosed. One man presented the appearance of having been strangled, while the features of the other were disfigured and unrecognisable. Both were dead. The wooden upright in which the lift worked was split, and crushed by the impact caused by the obstruction. It was seen that the men had met their death by being jammed between the edge of the floor of the lift and the top embrasure of the kitchen window in the upward progress of the lift, their heads beingalmostseveredfrom their bodies. One of the victims was subsecpiently identified as John Laurens Murphy, age 215, labourer, a single man, residing in Latrobestreet. Tlu other body was ucognised as that of George Hamilton Watson, aged 40, a commission agent, residing in South Yarra. It is supposed that the men went to the lift, which afforded warm shelter, and, having pulled it down, went to sleep with their hands propped against the wall. When the lift is brought into a stationary position it begins to ascend with almost imperceptible motion at the rate of 3 feet or 4 feet an hour. When it reached the embrasure formed by the kitchen window, their heads slipped into the space, slightly hanging over the edge of the lift. The men continued to sleep, and when the top of the embrasure was reached they were jammed and killed as they lay.