INFAMOUS JOKE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13746, 8 September 1908, Page 7

INFAMOUS JOKE.

CHILD SET ON FIRE. The Sydney Telegraph of August 29 gives tho following account of a painful outrage, a brief report of which was cabled to New Zealand : Late last afternoon some would-be jocular person set a lighted match to a boy of 13 Who had wrapped himself in paper flags and decorations, with the result that the child is now lying in Sydney Hospital not expected to live. During the afternoon several children were playing in the street with coloured paper decorations , twining them round their necks and waists, and hanging themselves with paper nags. Jack Nava, aged 13, living with his parents in Liverpool Street, was walking, down Liverpool Street towards Sussex Street with a child of eight. According to the account given by this child, Jimmie Chapman, who. lives with his parents in Washington Street, at the foot of Bathurst Street, as they were walking together a strange man camo up. He seemed amused at the sight of trie boy wrapped round in paper streamers, and 1 , striking a match, he lit the end Of the decorations that hung from him. The papers flamed up, Jimmie cried out, "Jack, you're on fire!" and a man ran over from the opposite sido of the street, .stripped off his coat, and after a» few moments succeeded in putting out the flames with it. By this time the practical joker had disappeared, and littlo Jimmie seems to have been too dazed or frightened to notice where he went. The police were called, Mrs Nava was informed, and Constable Nicholl, of No. 2 police station, took the boy in a cab to Sydney Hospital, where he now lies. Early in the evening Mr Boultbee, bail magistrate, was summoned to take the boy* dying deposition. From what young Nava said, it would seem that he knows who it was that struck tho match, ■LL. II ■ — — »>