LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 764, 22 July 1916, Page 11

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Chief Postmaster, Christclmreh, advises that, owing to slips in the Ot.ira Gorge, mails from the West Coast, will not arrive in Christchurch to-night.

An initiate of the Sunnyside Mental Hospital named Williams escaped this morning. The police were notified in the city and surrounding districts, ami he was arrested at Papauui at 1.45 this afternoon. All matches having been postponed this afternoon on account of the weather, the members of the Y.M.C.A. Hoekey Club held a "talk" at headquarters. There was a very fair attendance of players, and the rules of the game were discussed and special features of play talked over. The speakers were Messrs W. Simpson, H. Hatch, D. Goldsbury, ami G. Ford. In the Early Colonists' Room at the Museum there is to be seen a somewhat gruesome collection of odds and euds found in a coflin on New Brighton beach by Mr W. E. Seager in 1852. The story of their finding is interesting. In the year mentioned Mr Seager, as head of the Police Department, set out for the coast to make investigations regarding allegations of smuggling amongst the whalers there. The journey from Christchurch to New Brighton was undertaken on foot, and occupied two days, scrub ami swamp preventing any expedition of progress. Protruding from a sand mound Mr Seager saw a coffin, the nails of which had rusted so as to detach the lid. A skeleton was thus exposed. Round the skull was a blark ribbon, which indicated that in Jife a pigtail had been worn. In the coflin also were the remains of a comb, while nearby were two pieces of wood, which had evidently been used to carry the i-oflin from the boat to the grave. Mr Seager secured the ribbon, the hair fastenings, portions of the shroud, and the coffin, anil brought them back with him to Christchurch. Mr Rolleston got into touch with the British Museum authorities, with a view to finding the identity of the man whose remains had been discovered. The repl\ r was that on Captain Cook's last voyage the ship's doctor had died, and had been buried on shore somewhere near Banks Peninsula, ft is probable, then, that the Museum exhibit, has a direct association witii the last voyage of the famous explorer.