Suspicious Boating Fatality.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6636, 28 March 1893, Page 4

Suspicious Boating Fatality.

Melbourne, March 8. A strange case of drowning occurred in tho Albert Park Lake near Melbourne on Monday evening, the wife of a young man named John Alexander Manton being drowned in less than 3ft of water. The couple wero only married on February 15, since which Manton effected a life insurance with the A.'M.P. Society for L7OO, payable on tho death either cf himself or his wife. So far as can be learnt there were no quarrels during the brief matrimonial experience of Manton and his wife, and the most of their time was spent together, excepting last Saturday (when Manton went to the races aud lost L 4 15s) and Sunday. Both days ho spent with friends, for reasons which were mada kmown by him to his wife. On Monday afternoon he returned home at four o'clock, when he hurriedly left the tea-table and said he would have to go out to transact urgent private business. His wife followed him to the gate, and prevailed upon him to change his mind and take her for r walk instead of keeping his business appointment. They went to the lagoun at Albert Park, and at haif-pasb seven o'clock chartered a light sculling boat, only large enough to carry three persons. Manton pulled up and down the lake till half-past nine o'clock, when, according to his own words, " feeling that the exercise was too heatin? "with his coat on, he stood up to take ir^off, and, losing his balance, he fell head foremost into the water and capsized the beat as he fell." His head, he says, stuck in the mud at the bottom of the lake, and for a time he was unable to recover himself, because his right foot caught in the outrider. When he at last became free he clung to the boat and called for assistance. He could not see his wife, and did not know what had become of her until his calls attracted a rescue party, and he was taken ashore. The account which he furnishes of the fatality conveys the impression that he altogether lost his wits when the boat upset, for the lake at the spot where the fatality happened, or where he find the boat were found, was only 3ft 3in deep, and yet he cried for assistance ; and when Richard Ward, a boat-house keeper, pulled out to the scene, he was clinging to the boat as if .his life depended upon the tenacity of his grip, and he was pretty nearly exhausted. The body of the wife was found about sixty yards away from where the boat is stated to have capsized, and at the spot the water was precisely 2ft 4in in depth Diligent inquiry has failed to discover any witnesses of the fatality, or of anyone who heard the wife scream. When the body of Mrs Manton had been handed over to the police, and had been removed by them to tho morsjue, Manton went to his home, and without informing anyone in the house of what had happened, went to bed. In the morning early Miss Young remarked that his clothes were wet, and he had apparently had a g° ucl " ducking " overnight. He replied: "Yes; and something more serious than that. I met with an accident, and Mrs Manton is dead."

The War Oflice'has issued ,1 new schedule of physical qualifications required in recruits for the regular army ruul militia. They must bs between eighteen and twenty five years of age, at least off. 4in. in height, and 33m round the chest, ;ind weigh 1151 b ; but eligible recruits below these conditions may be passed if the medical officer believes they will develop into efficient soldiers.

Mr Labouchere, in Truth, states that the maidens of Vienna have started a Spinster Club, with the object, as they avow, of bunging about the speedy and huppy marriages of its members, and asks why the maidons in London do not start a similar club. What surprises me, adds Labouchere, is that, considering the vast number of ladies who preach the equality of the sex in everything, is that an effort is not made to secure equal rights in proposing. To marry is more important to a woman than to have a vote. Why then should proposing be limited to one 8(?x ? Men are naturally more bashful than women, and the result of the present onesided rule is that many men remain ainylo because they cannot Living their courago up to the proposing point, and as a necessary consequence many a girl remains husbandlesß. It is stated that about 7000 ladies have joined the Anti-Crinoline Association. An Association of girls each pledged to propose to any man whom she might deem v desirable husband would he far more practical than nn Anti Crinoline •society.