NAVAL SPORTS TRAGEDY.
THREE STOKERS FATALLY BURNT. A strange accident, resulting in the death of throe stokers, named Cox, Dillon, and Rae, marred the Centurion’s sports at Malta last month. Some dozen men, dressed up as savages, were giving a display in which a white man was to be captured and rescued in the nick of time before the cannibals roasted him. The white man was captured -and a fire lighted according to the programme, but one of the savages, dressed in oakum and tow, caught fire himself, and the others, disregarding the dangerous nature of their getup, rushed to his assistanqoe, and at once caught fire too. For a moment the spectators did not realise the actual state of affairs, thinking it was all part of a savage war dance, and had it not been for ■the promptitude and presence of mind of a certain marine all the savages might have been burned to death. Assistance was promptly forthcoming, and the men’s clothing extinguished, but not before three men had been so terribly burned that they died in hospital. The chief petty officer in charge of this particular display has lost his reason.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 18946, 21 August 1923, Page 12
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194NAVAL SPORTS TRAGEDY. Otago Daily Times, Issue 18946, 21 August 1923, Page 12
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