ACCIDENTAL DEATH.

Wairarapa Age, 7 January 1926, Page 4

ACCIDENTAL DEATH.

FALL FROM HOTEL WINDOW. INQUEST ON ANDREW STEWARD. The inquest on Andrew Stewart, the elderly rabbiter from Aohanga station, who was found unconscious on Monday morning beneath his upstairs bedroom window at the Whakataki Hotel and later died at the Masterton Hospital, was heard before Mr E. G. Eton (District Coroner) yesterday. The evidence of Dr. A/ Hosking as to the injuries and of Constable Johnston as to.< identity was taken in Masterton and the inquest was then adjourned to Whakataki. Neils Anton Christiansen, licensee of the Whakataki Hotel, said he had known deceased about 12 months. He believed he>was cowman-gardener for H. T. Hume. Deceased was boarding at the hotel from December 16 to the time of the accident. Witness had not seen him the worse for drink and he was perfectly sober when he retired at 9.30 on Sunday evening. He thought deceased must have sat up' for a smoke in his bed, which was level with the window sill, and when leaning out of the window he overbalanced. ! He was a man of a quiet, pleasant disposition and was clean and tidy. Two other men had been known to fall out of an upstairs window at the hotel on previous occasions, though'without injury. Ada Lucy Fraser, cook at the hotel, gave similar evidence. Neil McNeill, a boarder at the hotel, testified as to the finding of the body. He thought deceased must have leaned out of the window to spit and had fallen out. When he carried Stewart upstairs in the morning he found the bedroom window wide open and a pipe on the bed. Thomas Wilson testified similarly. The Coroner returned a verdict that. Andrew Stewart died from injurief received as the result of his accidentI ally falling out of his bedroom window, upstairs at the Whakataki Hotel, or. the early morning of January 4.