DASTARDLY DESERTION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1405, 12 November 1886, Page 2

DASTARDLY DESERTION

The Lake County Press publishes some part culars of what, if true, appears to be a dastardly case of desertion by some of the retur ing prospectors from the Big Bav dietfic 1 . r l he Ptess says:—“A report was t ircnlattd ir. Queenstown on Monday >ha:. a man had knocked op on his way f>cm tha West Coast and had be m abacdoned by his mates ard left behind somewhere on the Martin’s Bay track. The polios acted with commendable- prompitude, and despatched Constable McLean to look for the man. The a instable found him at the Greenstone, to wherr|he had managed to crawl in the meantime He is a roan of abont 60 years of age, named John Tipett, an old and experienced rat' er, who had gone to Big Bay by tha Oinern a, but finding the ground to heavy for him to work, he had beeo making his way back along with bis two mates, —poor mates surely !—Tom Moore and John Mulligan. They had been about three weeks on the j >urney when his legs gave way, and be was left somewhere in the Greenstone Vall>y with very litt'e provis o:!?, his mates clearing .at end tJung the tent with them. They told some o f the peop’e at the Head of the bake, that they had left a man behimf, but they did not report it to the and left for down count-y without further troubling themselves abont tha matter. It wrs f theref ore only on the arrival of t-ie second party, who repotted the circumstances to the police, that anything wsaknrwn of the sfifdr in Queenstown. Tippett arrived in Queenstown in a very weak condiboo, and is to be taken to the hospital. He sceafes very bitterly of tha conduct of his mates in leaving him, as he has every reason to do. If the so-called mates of J hn T'ppett sre a fair sample of those who went to Big Bay, then we do not expect the field to get much of a trial.”