MISSING CHINESE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23356, 26 May 1939, Page 10

MISSING CHINESE

LINK. IN WILL CASE DJSAPPEARS FROM SHIP ' EQUITY SUIT HELD UP f/FBOM OUR OWN CORRKSPONDKNT] SYDNEY, May 10 A Chinese, William Long Parke, aged 65. an important link in a £52.000 will suit before the Equity Court, disappeared from the liner Changte on the voyage of the vessel from Hongkong, to Australia. Parke went to China early this year to secure evidence for an equity suit which is part heard. He sailed from Hongkong on April 17 and was not seen after that date. Soon after the Changte berthed at Sydney the DeputyDirector of Navigation, Captain N. G. Roskruge, opened an inquiry into the disappearance. The Chineso ConsulGeneral, Dr. Pao, applied for the inquiry, following a request by air mail from a son of the missing passenger. Inquiries had previously been held at Manila and Brisbane. Evidence was given that the missing man was a grocer at Belmore, a suburb of Sydney, and that his business had been sold in his absence. Two cabin mates in the second saloon said he had acted queerly after the ship had cleared Hongkong about 11 p.m. on April 17. It was stated that he walked about the- decks beating bis chest with his clenched fists and crying: "All is lost." Captain Koskruge found that Parke disappeared from the ship at sea without any suspicious circumstances. Parke was a brother of the late Alfred Long Parke, of I'otts Point, who died in April last year, leaving an estate-of £52,000. The case came before -Mr. Justice Nicholas in the Equity Court last December. Leong .Wong Shee, a Chinese woman. Leong Sih Lung, and Leong Sin Tung, her sons, all living in China, claimed shares in tho estate of Alfred Long Parke. J Leong. "Wong Shee claimed that she was the wife of Alfred Long Parke and that he was tho father of her two sons. The claim, under the Testator's Family Maintenance Act, was opposed by Mrs. Bertha Parke, widow of Alfred Long Parke, executrix and sole beneficiary intestate. A motion to dismiss the suit on the ground that the solicitor for the Chinese woman was not properly retained stands adjourned. '