AN OLD WOMAN'S DEATH.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10514, 23 July 1910, Page 4

AN OLD WOMAN'S DEATH.

PITIABLE SCENE OF FILTH. (Per Press Association-.) Christchurch, July 22. An old woman named Georgina Ambrose, whose age is given at anything between 70 and SO, died last night at her home in Hills road, Marshland, under circumstances which were as extraordinary as they were pitiable. The building, which she called her home, is a wood and corrugated iron shanty, divided into two compartments, and occupying a fairly liirge section. Last night Constable Smith, who is stationed at St. Albans, . received a message that the old woman was dying, and he at once proceeded to her place. He sent for a doctor, who responded to the message, but shortly after he arrived the old woman breathed her last. She was an old-age pensioner, and was well-known by sight in the city. She was not married, but it is believed that she was the aunt of a girl whose tragic death provided Melbourne with a sensation a few years back. The girl was murdered and dismembered, the remains being packed in a trunk and thrown into the Yarra. - A reporter visited the old woman's shanty to-day, and found that the conditions under which she had been living for some years were shocking in the extreme. The place was inconceivably filthy, and it would require almost optical demonstration to convince anyone that such ait existence was possible in these days of inspection and compulsory sanitation. The approach to the house lay through a water-logged area, the worst portions of which were spanned with logs of wood, boards, and old ladders. TDead docks stood in melancholy profusion, adding to the general tone of desolation. The backyard was littered with the most heterogeneous collection of articles one could wish to see. Three old perambulators of the heavy iron type were the most noticeable items in the collection. Then there were boxes, bottles, bags, jars, pots, and pahs, fowls (dead and alive), and a black dog of nondescript breed. When the wooden boxes were lifted an extraordinary discovery came to light. The old woman had used them as meat and vegetable safes. Under one she had placed some bacon, simply laying it on the filthy ground and the.n turning the box oyer it. Under an- • other box there was a vegetable marrow and some onions. The backyard was in an indescribably filthy condition. The fowls—there must have.been about 100 of them—rioted about in the filth. At the inquest to-night a verdict of death from senile decay was returned.