Accidents, Suicides, etc.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 25, 17 June 1908, Page 7

Accidents, Suicides, etc.

The body of the missing engineer of the trawler Endon, : Andrew Walwick, was recovered from the river by the Harbour dredge at Gisborne on June 10. Robert A. Gunn, a miner of over 70 years of age, was killed by an explosion of dynamite in a mine at [Tokatea on June IL 1 Thomas Brown, a retired gentleman, aged abodt 60, jyiis found hanging i« the bush at Caversfiam. Deceased had been suffering from melancholia, and it is supposed that ho committed suicide. A married woman named Mary Collins was burned to death at Waiau, Canterbury, on Saturday night, June 13th. At the inquest on Thomas Craig, compiercjjf.l traveller, wjbose body was found at Jxiwyer’s Head Beach, a verdict of suicide while temporarily insane was re-

turned. A letter written by deceased to a friend indicated his intention of making away with himself, and concluded; “Good-bye. I am perfectly sane. No flies.”

Information has been received that Captain John Campbell, one of the first shipmasters in the employ of the Westport Coal Company, and his two sons were recently drowned on the West Australian coast, and that Mrs Campbell died suddenly at Christchurch some weeks after of a broken heart.

Leo Patrick Kenny, a shunter recently transferred from Auckland to Invercargill, fell between two moving trucks, sustaining shocking injuries to both legs and one arm, which had to be amputated. His skull was also fractured, and he died on June 12th without regaining consciousness. He leaves a widow but no family.

Mr. John Duthie lost his new 14-16 h.p. Argyle- motor car by fire at Taita. The chauffeur was refilling the petrol tank by the light of a motor lamp, when the petrol caught fire, and the car was speedily ablaze. The chauffeur attempted to extinguish the flames by means of a hose, and getting too near, was overcome by the fumes of the petrol, and had a narrow escape of being burned to death.

At Westport, a lad named Richard Kearse, 17 years of age, when playing in a junior football match on Saturday afternoon, came into collision with a player on his own side, getting a severe blow in the abdomen. He died at 4 p.m. on Sunday. The body of a man, in an advanced stage of decomposition, was discovered on Saturday last at Parawai, Thames, in a quantity of ti-tree scrub. There was a bullet wound in the head, and a loaded revolver with one chamber discharged was lying by the side of the body. Deceased is supposed to be a stranger named Tompkins, who arrived at j. names about a month ago. The remains of John Dickey, an old age pensioner, who followed the occupation of gumdigging, were found in the deceased’s whare at Brown’s Bay, Takapuna, on Sunday, June 14th. There is, nothing conclusive. as ;to how the whare caught fire, but as deceased was very fond of reading in bed it,is surmised that a mishap with his. candle caused the fatality-attended. conflagration. The whare was - entirely of.Taupo, q.nd therefore very inflammable. A sad fatality occurred at Maxwelltown, 16 miles from Wanganui, on Sunday afternoon, when Ballance Edgar Jones, 1.3 years of age. son of Mr F. Webb Jones, editor of the “Herald,” was accidentally shot by his cousin. The boys were near the verandah of the house, and their attention was directed to a gun standing on a corner of the verandah, which the cousin took up to explain its mechanism, not knowing it was loaded. He accidentally pulled the trigger, and shot the other lad dead.

A man named Phil Mcßurney was found lying in Victoria-street, Cambridge, last Sunday morning smothered in blocd and insensible. His groans awoke the inhabitants. Dr. Roberts

was fetched, and had him removed to the Victoria private hospital. The injured man states that he was riding home on a bicycle shortly after 10 o’clock on Saturday night, but he remembers nothing more until he was carried to the hospital. There was an immense-pool of blood on the stfbet, and the bicycle was lying uninjured on the side of the street. The man nearly expired through loss of blood from a wound on his forehead. It is thought that someone must have ridden a horse over him, though it was a bright moonlight night.