Extraordinary Event.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XII, Issue 27, 7 March 1910, Page 4

Extraordinary Event.

ATTEMPT TO BLOW UP A HOTEL. TWO TERRIFIC EXPLOSIONS. Considerable sensation was caused in Wanganui last Wednesday morning by the receipt of the news of what seems to have been an extraordinary outrage. It appears that at 20 minutes past 3 in the morning the residents of Upokongaro were roused by a couple of terrific explosions which were heard not only all over the township, but even at points a mile away, while the shock was felt in many houses situated across the river. Upon investigation of the cause of the startling noise being made, it was found that what looked like a deliberate attempt to wreck the Upokongaro Hotel had been perpetrated. Two charges of explosives, believed to have been gelignite, had been fired, one having been placed on the ground a short distance the dining-room window in front of the hotel, while the second had been placed against an iron fence which joins the side of the building. The shots shattered every window in the hotel, but fortunately, did no harm to the building itself. Nevertheless, those in the hotel seem to have had a narrow escape. A little nephew of Mr H. Tyson (the licensee) was sleeping in bed under one of the shattered windows and was literally covered with splintered glass, but escaped without a scratch. Mr and Mrs Tyson and several boarders were thrown out of bed by the shock, but everybody soon recovered from their fright,, and were thankful to find matters no worse.

Detective Siddells went up to Upokongi ro the same morning to investigate the affair and was not long in finding a clue. Strong suspicion bad attached to a man named Laurent, a Mexican half-caste, and that suspicion was strengthened by the finding of his coat snd vest—the pocket containi'g c?rtain correspondence—on the Upokongaro ferry boat. The correspondence seems to point to the suicide of the supposed perpetrator, and the police went up in the afternoon to drag the river wher? they believed that Laurent had ended his days.