Fratricide and Suicide

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6297, 18 February 1892, Page 3

Fratricide and Suicide

A terrible tragedy is reported to have taken place near Nathalia, Victoria, on the 26th ult. According to a Melbourne cablegram in the Hobart Mercury, a man named Robert Brown was living on a farm with his brother John, who had been loafing on him for several years. John was about to be married, and Robert desiring to get rid of him before that event, and finding it impossible to do so in any other way, placed the farm in the hands of an auctioneer for sale. John promised to leave if Robert withdrew the farm, but the latter declined to do so. The men had not spoken for some time. On the 26th, whilst Robert wa3 sitting at breakfast, John shot him in the back. A laborer named Weatherill hearing the report and the cry of murder went into the house, when John told him he had shot his brother accidentally, and requested him to go for a doctor and a policeman, but to tell no one else. Robert indignantly declared that John had shot him purposely, and asked Weatherill to take the gun from him, but John, in an excited manner, threatened to blow out his brains if he touched the gun ; and Weatherill thereupon went and alarmed the neighbors, and got a horse and went for the doctor and police. The neighbors approaching the place he ird the report of two shots, and were afraid to enter. The doctor on arriving could not gain admittance. A policeman named Murcutt arriving broke open the door, and found John lying across the bed with a string attached to the trigger of the gun and tied to his toe. He had placed the muzzle in his mouth and blown out his brains. Rohart was lying on the bed where Weatherill had placed him, shot down by a gun apparently fired from the door of the adjoining room, the shot entering the face under the right eye and fracturing the skull. The medical evidence at the inquest showed that either shot would have been fatal. A verdict of murder and suicide was returned.

At a farewell dinner given to him by his corps, Lord Orislow, who is an honorary colonel of the Yeomanry Cavalry of Canterbury, made the following remarks :— Well, sir, 1 hope the Yeomanry Cavalry of Canterbury may lon^ continue to flourish. lam satisfied that they form a very valuable part of the colonial defences ; and now that you have always near your shores, always cruising around your coasts, two of her Majesty's Vessels, I hope you will he able to make arrangement with them to give some sort of practical demonstration of the value of the New Zealand Cavalry. I should like on some occasion, say at your annual training or Easter encampment, that it should be understood that Her Majesty's ships should try to effect a landing on some given part of the coasts of New Zealand, and then you gboukl do all that lies in your power to pie.

vent that landing being effected. (Loud | cheers.) That would be practical cxemplifi--1 cation of the utility of the Cavalry. You have in the case of war a long stretch of I coast line to protect from attack, and who more able and fit to prevent a landing than the well-horsed Cavalry of New Zealand. (Hear, hear.) I recommend that to your attention as I have recommended it to my advisers. (Hear, hear.) I should like to remind you of how in England we look upon our yeomanry regiments. The word yeomanry represents to the English mind one of the finest and most stalwart bodies of men we possess. The ancient yeomanry of England were not great feudal lords, nor were they their vassals; they were a highly independent and well organised body of landed proprietors. (Loud applause.) They were always esteemed as they are esteemed now. They were esteemed in daj's gone by, when it was not the fashion to say hard things about landed proprietors. (Laughter and applause.) But I regret to say that they are a fast diminishing quantity. They are, nevertheless, respected by all English people because they combine in their persons the stalwart Englishman and the small proprietor. (Hear,"hear.) Sir, if it should ever fall to my lot to serve Her Majesty the Queen in any other regiment ; in any other Volunteer Corps, or to wear Her Majesty's uniform in service at Home, you may rely upon it that I shall never forget that I first wore the scarlet uniform of her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen as honorary-Colonel of the Canterbury Yeoman Cavalry. (Enthusiastic applause. )