TRAGEDY AT PARRAMATTA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13081, 22 January 1906, Page 5

TRAGEDY AT PARRAMATTA.

POLICE CONSTABLE SHOOTS HIMSELF.

Constable George Larkin, aged 23 years, of Parramatta, New South Wales, shot himself with a revolver on January 12, and died in the Parramatta Hospital about an hour later. , .

Larkin went on duty at ten p.m., and about half-past twelve a.m. was noticed off his usual beat. Senior-Constable West followed him, to see what was the matter. Larkin must have slipped into a doorway on the way up Church-street North, as, when West reached Mr. Hart's chemist shop, he heard the sound of a shot behind him, and going back found Larkin lying in the doorway of a shop at the Parramatta Corporation Bath Buildings, his hand grasping a recently-discharged revolver and the thumb pressing the trigger.

Larkin was bleeding from two wounds in the head, but life was not extinct, and he was removed to the Parramatta Hospital, where he died shortly after two a.m.

Constable Larkin had only been five months in the force, during which time he was stationed in Parramatta.

The editor of the Cumberland Argus received a letter written by Larkin, dated aquarter past nine p.m. on the 11th, stating: " I am leaving this world because I am tired of life, but my words are true concerning this letter."

Larkin's letter complained of unfair treatment on the part of a senior. officer. It stated: " I have been treated in a most cruel way. Reports he sent to Superintendent Brennan against me were a solid foundation of lies. That is why he won the case against me. I will conclude, asking the Inspector-General to see further into the brutal and unreasonable way in which men are treated. lam writing to the InspectorGeneral for him to have an interview with the poor, overworked police of Parramatta."