SHOOTING AT AN EXPRESS TRAIN.

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 54

SHOOTING AT AN EXPRESS TRAIN.

SENSATIONAL EXPERIENCE ON THE NORTHERN EXPRESS.

Some passengers who were travelling in the second express train from Christchurch to Dunedin on Thursday night had a sensational experience just before, or- immediately after, Goodwood was reached. Mr and Mr 3 Robertson, of the Junction Hotel, Invercargill, who were the sole occupants of a first-class bird -cage or Exhibition car, numbered A 720, were starred by the window glass in the western side of the carriage feeing shattered into fragments and falling into the car and on the floor. Almost simultaneously the occupants of a first-class " smoker," a little farther along, were equally startled by a window on the same aide of the train being shattered by something fired or thrown at it. The dining car was between the two carriages damaged, and it escaped without injury. The extraordinary occurrence took place at about 7.30 p.m. The holes made in the windows were ajjout an inch or an meh and a-half in diameter, and were evidently caused Byshots from a rifle or stones from catapults being hurled against them. Mr and Mrs Robertson escaped without any injury, but were naturally alarmed at the suddenness of the occurrence. The occupants of the other carriage, it is stated, had a narrow escape from injury by the shattered glass, and one passenger is said to have had the side of his face slightly grazed with one of the pieces of glass forced into the apartment. On the arrival of the train at Waibouaiti the matter was reported to the stationmaster there, and the police at Waikouaiti and Palmerston were immediately notified, but up to yesterday evening no clue to the identity of the perpetrators, of this extraordinary act had been discovered. The engine-driver ( J. Cameron) observed two persona standing at the Goodwood road asIJhe train passed, but did not notice anything about them to indicate that they were persona who would be guilty of an act whicK might have resulted very seriously to a number of passengers in the^ train. The polio© are- -still making inquiries into the matter, and it is to be sincerely hoped they will ultimately succeed in bringing the perpetrators of a most malicious act to justice. In connection with this occurrence it will he remembered that several years ago a misguided) youth, who was out with a gun, fired a shot at the chimney stack 61 a passing Southern train, and the charge found' a lodgment in the body of the- fireman, who was attending to the engine, and caused his death.

rjRHE Right Thing in the Right PW is X NORTON'S PREMIER EGG PRE* SEEYATIVB, "

"You have in the Scotch the finest j people out of heaven," remarked Mr Ready in the course- of a lecture at Oamaru on .Thursday night ; and he added, in an aside : " I doubt whether heaven will improve them much."

r Two complaints of a serious nature — soarlet fever and diphtheria — are at present afflicting a number of Cobden people, some bad cases being reported. It is stated that carelessness, to a certain extent, is attributable to the spread of the, disease^,.