HEAD PIERCED BY BULLET

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1929, Page 8

HEAD PIERCED BY BULLET

MAN RISES AND OPENS DOOR SEQUEL TO MYSTERIOUS SILENCE HORRIFYING TRAGEDY AT PATEA y CHINESE REALISES HE IS BLIND In response to repeated knocks—the questioning outcome of a mysterious silence that had brooded over the house all day, the door of a Patea home slowly opened last night. Did ever two men gaze with horror on a more astounding sight? Grasping the door handle, his sightless eyes peering hopelessly and vacantly in the direction of his visitors, stood James Bing, a young Chinese fruiterer of Patea. A man almost risen from the dead, he seemed. Piercing his temple in the region of one eye was a .32 calibre revolver bullet wound. And on the opposite side of his head were marks indicating that the bullet, almost visible, had nearly emerged. Although James Bing had lain all day'unconscious on the floor of his 6'hqp, the shadow of death playing over him, he was not dead. In his dazed condition he unfolded one of the most pathetic stories to which his hearers had. ever listened. It was the tragedy of the hopelessness of a man who wakes up in the morning to find that he is blind. ' Bing’s shop having been closed all day, a fishmonger named S. Bartley- and. a Chinese laundryman, Joe Tong,- investigated at 5.30 last evening, and it was • in response to their knocking that Bing opened the door. As soon as his condition was realised Bing was attended and taken to the hospital. He was semiconscious last night, and the extent of his injury will not be known nntil ( today, but it is very doubtful if he will recover. . . • A depth of pathos is attached to his story. When Bing awoke yesterday •hiorning,(according to the story he told those who found him, he wa4 totally blind, arfl lie did not think it was worth while living. Several notes were found in the premises. One was addressed to a personal friend. It said: “Perhaps we will have a cup of tea on the other side. When he was discovered in the shop he asked Mr. Bartlett whether, if he recovered, he would be without the sight of his eyes. If that was to be-the case, he wished to have his misery ended. ' 'l'' Bing, who was about 19 years of age, was regarded as a respectable and honourable young Chinese. He possessed considerable ability as *a black and win e artist, and had sent a number of examples of his work to Austral It is thought that close application to sketenin" may have affected his eyesight. An alarm clock standing on a shelf in Bing’s .room had. a bullet hole through it ° The hands indicated that it had stopped at 7.30 o’clock. Evidently the weapon had been tried on the clock before Bing received his injury.