ACCIDENTS, OFFENCES, ETC.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1256, 23 October 1884, Page 3

ACCIDENTS, OFFENCES, ETC.

A Norwegian sailor was sentenced at Auckland to a month’s imprisonment for attempting to kiss a young woman against her will.

A man named Antonio Bassnelli, while at work in an alluvial claim at Ross on Saturday, was killed by a fall of alluvium. The face was 200 ft high, and Bassnelli ran 40ft along the tail race before he was overtaken.

Miss Georgie Smithson, who, with her company, was coaching it from Cromwell to Arrowtown, met with a rather serious accident. A rein broke, and the horses bolted. The driver pulled the horses into the bank and the coach upset. Miss Smithson had her left arm badly fractured. Mr Hennessy was badly bruised. At Alexandra South, in Vincent County (Otago), the lock-up was burnt down on Monday morning at four o’clock. There was one prisoner confined in it, a Chinaman named Ah Tew, but when the fire was discovered the flames had such a hold of the building that it was impossible to rescue him, and his body was burnt to a cinder. The building was of wood and iron, and was erected twenty years ago. At the inquest the constable in charge was exonerated from all blame, and an open verdict returned. Two men are supposed to have been drowned on Saturday night while crossing the Manawatu River, near Fitzsimmons place. One was Fitzsimmons, a married man, the other w f as named McKenzie, and was a youth of about seventeen. Ho one saw the occurrence, and no trace of the bodies has yet been found, but the horses they were riding were found loose, and the men have not been seen since Saturday. Every search is now being made. An uninsured house at Aonga, Whangarei (Auckland), valued at £4OO, was burnt down on Tuesday.—Bryant and Mills’s flour mills at Nelson have been burned down. Building was insured for £6OO. Loss, £6OO. Besides the loss on the building a large number of settlers lose heavily through the destruction of flour and wheat, which was uninsured. At the Supreme Court, Nelson, on Tuesday, Fanny Bonnington, for concealment of birth, was acquitted on the ground of insanity. Accused was ordered to be detained during the Colonial Secretary’s pleasure. Philip Rush v. Rose Ellen Rush and Walter Parker, a petition for divorce on the ground of adultery, was heard. The co-respondent, it was shown, had lodged at the house of petitioner at Grovetown, and both he and the respondent admitted the adultery. Subsequently they lived together as man and wife. The parties were married in Blenheim in 1879, petitioner being 41 and the respondent between 15 and 16. His Honor postponed his decision. In the case John Muncaster v. Mary Kaiser Muncaster and Robert Carnell, a decree absolute was granted, a rule nisi having been granted in Wellington last April. Both the divorce cases were undefended.