PEAL SHOT IN A STAGE FIGHT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1425, 22 June 1899, Page 14

PEAL SHOT IN A STAGE FIGHT

EIGHT PERSONS INJURED. The village of Oadfcy, a U,v miles from Leicester, was the scene of an alarming occurence on 7th April, by which no fewer than eight persons were shot, and two very seriously injured. It appears, reports the London “Daily News,” that the Easter entertainment” in the board school consisted of *'Yb^ Chinese Cantata, in which 60 performers adult and juvenile, took part-. Its most exciting incidnt was a battle between British soldiers and Chinese. The former were men armed with muzzle loading guns ; while the "Chinese” were 6 boys, carrying sword bayonets, who knelt behind barricades of tea chests. The “British’ pointed their guns downward toward the enemy, and it was arranged that the weapons should be capped and cracked in order to create a * realistic effect. All went well until the concluding performance, and until the fighting scene began. It had made little progress before a sensation was created by the alarming discovery that some of the •‘Chinese” had been shot in grim earnest and were bleeding profusely. The performance was at once stopped, and medical aid summoned. One little fellow, 11 years of age, named Edward Bates, was found to have the whole or left part of his face shot clean away. His head was at once bound up, and he was conveyed to the infirmary. Here the operation of tracheotomy had to be performed to enable him to breathe, and he was found to be in a critical condition, with little hope of recovery. His elder brother, Harold, aged 13, was shot in the temple. Very serious, also, were the injuries sustained by Edward Clarke, aged 18. He was found to have no fewer than 27 shots in the face and upper pari:- cf the neck. One of the pellets is believed to have pa-ss-eded right through the left eye, and the sight of the right is endangered by a shot which has lodged near it. He. too, was removed to the infirmary, and hopes are entertained of his recovery, though he may lose his sight. The younger brother, Albert, aged 9, was also found bleeding, was conveyed home, and had two shots extracted from his neck. Another boy named Hurst, bad his nose shot c T ean through. Three young ladies were injured by the shots rebounding from the wall. Here Miss Harding had some lodged m her breast and in the left side of ner head, and Miss Findlay had four shots in the breast, while the third was only slightly injured. All promptly received medical attention. Inquiries showed that the whole of the injuries had been inflicted by one and the same gun. This had been borrowed from a local plasterer named Giddans, had not been used for six months, and was supposed to be unloaded. It had been tested twice with caps before the entertainment, and gave no discharge. Nevertheless it seems to have been loaded wall sparrow shot and this had been fired off by the cracking of the cap in the very first fight in which it was used. The deplorable accident necessarily created a painful sensation in the district, and the greatest sympathy is expressed for the sufferer-'. In a later issue our contemporary records the death of the lad Bates, and that the boy who fired the gun was so prostrated by grief that medical attention ad to be obtained for him.