TRAGIC COINCIDENCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18336, 2 March 1934, Page 11

TRAGIC COINCIDENCE

two mmm rmies MURDER OF TAXI-DRIVER WOMAN’S TERRIBLE ORDEAL Singular coincidences in- two tragedies in Auckland, which Have ail- appeal ih their very pathos, arte' recalled by the inquiry into the rrtUrdhr' Of tlih taxi* driver, Mis James' Hunter Blair, at Mount Roskill on October 15, which is to be resumed shortly. Nearly 24- years’ ago, on the solitary bird sanctuary, Little Bkrrieh Islfihd, in the Hauraki Gulf, ait experience befelanother Hunter Blair family, as - Harrowing in some details as the brlital attack upon the t'aki-dHver, and the remarkable bonds between the two incidents might well make the superstitious pause to consider how tragedy came the way of two families of the same name within a generation. Mr. Robert Hunter Blair, Who 1 Was curator of the sanctuary- of LitUm Barrier Island, became seribtlSly ill On 1 September 21, 1910. HrS Wife, the brtiy other person on the island, had no means of communication with the mainland in the time of crisis, and, with the rude remedies available at the curator’s house, she worked all day. and night in a courageous effort to save her husband’s life. Her efforts were of no avail, afld 1 MK Blair died on the iriorriirig of September 22.

MADE COFFIN AND’ DUG GRAVE It would be difficult to imagine a more tragic situation, for any woman, but Mrs. Blair feed it with the fortitude and resolution of people Who live in the lonely places of tile world. For two days she maintained a sorrowful vigil over her husband's body, hoping against' hope that some vessel Wodld call 1 at’ the lbhely’ outpost.. It was a forlorn lippfc, for it was not the time fbr the pi-SVlSibtl Vessel 1 to travel from the mainland, 16 miles away, on the regular monthly call. On the third day after her husband’s death, Mrs. Blair collected planks and boards, some of them - from the beach) and fashioned a coffin fbr" Her fitisbfihd. She dilg a grave near the' hOtiSO; Tfife next day there Was a scene Of sOrrOW when she committed Her husband’s remains to their last resting place, and, as the solitary mourner, read the burial service over the grave. Although deeply affected by the ordeal to which she had been subjected, Mrs: Blair remained* at the lonely- habitation, with no coffip&ny save the native birds, but she was able tb find Solace 1 in human company'ort the .evening Of the sixth day after hfer husband’s death, when the Government steamer Hinemoa happened to call at the Little Barrier. Mrs. Blair was then taken to Auckland. BOTH THE SAME AGE A unrt from the occurrence of the name of Hunter Blair in two tragedies, another curious aspect is that Mr. Robert Hiiriter Blair and Mr. James Hunter Blair were both 53 years old. Mr. Robejt Hunter Blair WUs a native of Scotland. Before going to Little Barrier Island he served for several years in the Tourist Department. There is evidently no connection between the two Hunter Blair families, hut that circumstance tends to emphasise the curious bond between the two cases. In one, there was a rare example of devotion on the part of a woman under an ordeal probably without parallel in New Zealand; in the other, the seemingly purposeless attack upon an unsuspecting taxi-driver gives the crime a macabre atmosphere Which is in every way unusual in New Zealand murder cases.—Auckland Herald.