TRAGIC DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 155, 1 July 1907, Page 5

TRAGIC DEATH.

FATE OF A WELL KNOWN BROKER.

FOUND SHOT IN HIS OFFICE.

SYDNEY, June 25.

Mx Felix Randi*. the well known stock and share broker, and ex-chairman of the Sydney Stock Exchange, was found dying at his office in the Stock Exchange, Pitt-street, early last evening. He was bleeding from a bullet wound in the head.

At twenty-five minutes £o 6 o'clock Mr Randle (who was a partner in the firm of Handle and Willis, stock and share brokers) went into his office on the first floor of the Exchange, where he had been engaged practically all the afternoon. It was then close upon the hour at which he and the clerks usually locked up the office. The report of a firearm rang through the building al most immediately, and upon Mr Major Bidwell, a clerk of the firm, rushing into the private room, he saw his chief seated in a chair, leaning to the right, with his head down. " From a wound just above the right ear blood was flowing, while a revolver lay at his feet.

There was a bullet wound about an inch above the right ear, extending through the head to an inch above the left ear, the bullet lodging just under the flesh. At 10 minutes past 7 Mr Randle expired, not having regained consciousness. Instant death was only prevented by the fact that the hemorrhage did not press on the brain.

That the deceased ended his life by his own act is a matter beyond apparent doubt, but why he should have done so is a question which, on the present face of things, will probably never be answered. He had been about his business as usual during the day, and, so far as is known, there was nothing in the nature of that business to so woefully distress the man as to cause him to wish for death. It was known at his office, and also by some of his friends outside, that latterly he had suffered a little from insomnia, but other brokers who met him during the day in their usual haunts, and spoke to him as late as a quarter to 5 in the afternoon, detected nothing in his manner to indicate that he was not his usual selt.