AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23016, 20 October 1936, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

THE MISSING LAUNCH SEARCHERS, FIND NO TRACE i SYDNEY, Oct. 19. No sigh has been found of the motor launch in which are Abbot and Simpson, although a destroyer and three ■ aeroplanes made a search < over a wide area of the ocean on Saturday and Sunday. The launch is now 12 days, out from Lord Howe Island, and it is feared that the petrol and food supplies will be exhausted. A wireless message from the destroyer Waterhen, which travelled nearly 1200 miles during the search, says she js returning to Sydney in a severe gale. The crew of the Waterhen consider that the launch would have no chance in such seas. A previous message stated: The Commonwealth Government has arranged for three aeroplanes and a destroyer to search for Brian Abbot and Hay Simpson, who are overdue from Lord Howe Island in a launch. DEATH OF MISS M‘RAE SYDNEY, Oct. Wr (Received Oct. 20, at 0.45 a.m.) At the inquest on Constance M‘Rae, the coroner returned ah open verdict. He said there was no evidence to show how she got into the water. There appeared to be only two solutions, either she had cast herself overboard or had fallen from the vessel. Very little had been adduced one way or the other, and the matter was largely one of opinion. A previous message read as follows:—Mystery surrounds the death by drowning of a wealthy young woman, Constance M‘Rae, whose body, clad in most expensive garments, was discovered on the beach near Sydney Heads. The police have established that Miss M'Rae, who is 27, had just returned from a trip to Japan, and had disaopeared from the China steamer Tanda, which left late on Friday night on the continuation of its voyage to Melbourne, where Miss M‘Rae resided.