ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19977, 20 December 1926, Page 12

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

TWO BOYS DROWNED. (Per United Pr -sa Association.) PALMERSTON N., December 19. A distressing double drowning fatality occurred in the Manawatu River on Saturday afternoon, when two boys, Lester Alexander Wilson, aged 11 years, and Vincent William Konowicz, aged 14, lost tneir lives. Passers-by noticed a heap of clothes on the hank. Returning two hours later they were alarmed to see the clothes still there. A search revealed no trace of the boys, but the clothes showed their identity, the bodies were recovered to-day. Konowicz was wearing a shirt, from which it is surmised that he went to the assistance of the younger boy, who was in difficulties. A* SEAMAN DROWNED. (Pee United Press Association.) WESTPORT. December 19. A seaman named Alexander Kerr Stewart, who joined the Stroma at Dunston, England, was lost overboard .between New Plymouth and Westport sometinje on Saturday morning. He went on duty at 1 a.m. as look-out. Another seaman who came on duty at 3 a.m. saw nothing of Stewart. After some time, thinking something had happened, he informed the chief officer, who at once saw the captain. The boat was stopped and went back to where the vessel had been at 1 o’clock when Stewart was on duty, but nothing was seen of him. Stewart could not swim. If he could there was a lot of flotsam and jetsam brought down the rivers by the floods, and he could have found good support. A TRAINER’S DEATH. (From our Special Correspondent.) INVERCARGILL, December 19. An inquest touching the death of Archibald M‘Arthur Matheson, who met with a fatal accident on the Southland racecourse on'Thursday, was held on Saturday before Mr G. Cruickshank, S.M., acting as coroner. Bertram Peach, a racecourse employee, stated that on the morning of December 15 he saw deceased driving a trotting horse in a sulky on the clay track. Ho had a pacing horse alongside him and was going fast. The trotter was breaking, and when endeavouring to settle down again the horse fell, and the shafts of the sulky striking the ground, deceased was thrown over the horse, about five or six yards from the sulky. Deceased’s head struck the hard day track. Witness was the first to reach deceased, who was unooncious and bleeding from the ears. He was removed to Mr Marshall’s residence and later taken to the Hospital. Thomas Marshall, caretaker) of the racecourse, said that on the morning in question at about 10 o’clock he saw deceased driving a trotter in a sulky alongside a man riding a pacer. Witness saw the horse break and then his attention was j distracted. His attention, however, was called a moment later to the fact that there had boon an accident. Witness went to the spot and found deceased lying bleeding and unconscious. . Dr Pottingor was summoned, and deceased was later removed to the Southland Hospital. After medical evidence had been given as to the nature of deceased’s injuries the coroner returned a verdict that was accidentally killed on the Southland racecourse by being thrown from a sulky while training a trotter. A FATAL FALL. DEATH IN HOSPITAL. A man named John Henry Salmon, who resided at 54 Driver street, St. Kilda, Dunedin, died in the Hospital yesterday morning as the result of a fall in the Dunedin Municipal Baths on Wednesday last. The deceased had been paying a visit to Mr Olds, th caretaker of the baths, and his wife, and had just left the kitchen when Mrs Olds heard a thud. She found the deceased lying unconscious at the foot of the stairs, down which he had apparently fallen. He was taken to the Hospital with a fractured skull. The deceased leaves a wife and two children. An inquest will be held at the Hospital this morning. A PAINFUL ACCIDENT. Mason Granger, aged 18 years, residing ; at Macandrew’s Bay, was*admitted to the Hospital yesterday with injuries received through a fall from a bicycle. He was cycling near Waitati when the forks of his machine broke. One of the forks ran into the side of his face near the eye. The wound necessitated an operation, but the injury is not of a serious nature. The United Congregational Church was filled last evening on the occasiop of the Christmas choral service. After a preparatory service, conducted by the Rev. C. Maitland Elliss, Maundor’s tuneful and impressive cantata, “Bethlehem,’’ was sung by the choir, under the leadership of Mr W. R. Sinclair,- the soloists being Miss Alice Wilkinson. Miss May Dryden, Mr A. J. Lungley, Mr R. Braithwaito, and Mr G Dyer. The solos were interpreted with fine devotional feeling. and the attractivc- > choruses were rendered with precision an: taste. A feature of the service was the sympathetic organ work by Mr Ron, Abernathy. ' Piccadilly Circus (London) was not built until the beginning of the nineteenth century.