CLUTHA DROWNING FATALITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13454, 5 April 1907, Page 5

CLUTHA DROWNING FATALITY.

CONCLUSION OF THE INQUEST

[BY TELKGRAIM*. — PRESS ASSOCIATION*.]

DVXEDIX, Thursday. I The adjourned inquiry touching the death of George Francis Sandilands was concluded at Balciuthit to-day. Nothing calculated to show the actual cause of the accident (by which deceased and his wife and chiK. lost their lives) was elicited. The evidence from Kaitangata, that of Constable .Marshall, went to show that Sandilands hud spent the time while there on the fateful day in the house of a friend, and when the constable saw him leaving he appealed to lie quite sober. Richard Cornish, licensee of the Stirling Hotel, deposed that Sandilands had been four times at his house altogether on the day of the accident, ouce in the forenoon on a bicycle, and three times in the afternoon when driving with his wife and child. All the drink that he had obtained, to witness' knowledge, was two glasses of beer, a bottle of draught beer to drink on the road, and two bottles of bottled beer, which were subsequently found intact in the buggy when tished out of the rivet. The verdict of the jury was that "Deceased met his death by drowning in the Clutha River, as the result of an accident by which his horse and trap were capsized into the river at- Cliffs, on Hasborough Road, but there is no evidence to show how the accident took place." A rider was added that the. attention of the local authorities should be called to tie' dangerous state of the road. an#the jury also took occasMlfllfto compliment Mrs. T. L. Morrison, the only witness of the occurrence, on her prompt action in going for assistance. The body of Mrs. Sandilands was discovered yesterday afternoon, washed up on the river bank near the Presbyterian Church at Inchclutha.