TRAGIC WEEK-END.

Otago Witness, Issue 3954, 24 December 1929, Page 28

TRAGIC WEEK-END.

SYDNEY'S GRIM RECORD. It VIOLENT DEATHS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 12. The last week-end in Sydney was one of the grimmest in the history of the Eleven people met violent deaths within the metropolitan area, and the City Morgue on Sunday night was a place of horror, filled with the victims. Death in many starklj tragic forms swept from the sky, the sea, the earth, and from smoking pistol barrels, and a knife. Two men were ferociously mur dered in the infamous Sur-v Hills district. Two children were drowned in water holes. In a plane crash at Mascot a woman was terribly injured, and she died later. A fisherman was swept into the sea and taken by a huge shark. A steward disapj care J as a boat was entering the Sydney Heads, and a motorist was killed in the city when a motor car struck a pile. And there were others. Two charges of murder have arisen from this grim record. One concerned the death of Arthur Lange, who was dis embowellcd with a knife, and the other the death of Alexander Bedford. Bedford is supposed to have quarrelled with another man over a woman. The other man pushed him down, the fall killed him. Lange was in a dreadful state when discovered by the police in a home at Surry Hills, and he had no hope of re eovery from the start. An arrest has been made in each case. “ Mystery surrounds the disappearance of the steward, Terrance John Lewis, of Balmain. Lewis was ast seen alive at S o’clock on Saturday night. He was then in good spirits, recording to other members of the crew of the Akaroon. But when he was reported missing no trace of him could be found.

Although everything was done to save her life, Mrs Irene Marie Burnie, known in musical circles as Miss Irene de Luca, who was injured in a plane crash in the city, died the following da n The tragicfeature about this fata"ty was that her husband, who is a city business man, did not know that his wife had been injured until a friend pointed out to him the news in the Sunday papers. “ I had n< idea she was up in the plane,” said her husband. “ I have frequently pleaded with her not to go up in aeroplanes. I have never been in a plane myself.” The couple had been estranged for some time, and it wa: reported that a reconciliation haJ been reached on the day the accident o< nirred. The list of tragedies included four eases of drowning. A girl of 10, paddling in the watcrhole at the rear of her home, got out of her depth and cried for help. Her mother heroically plunged in after her, but it was too late. The ehild had disappeared. The distracted mother was herself on the point of sinking when a youth heard her cries and went to her rescue. On Saturday afternoon a small boy was paddling a canoe in the harbour He said to his companion that he would have a dive. He divec, and he was not seen again. His body was recovered the following day in 20 feet of water.