WIFE SHOT DEAD.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 41, 21 November 1913, Page 3

WIFE SHOT DEAD.

TRAGEDY OF HUSBAND'S JOKE,

A verdict of ( "Accidental death was! returned at an inquest'held at Methley Yorks, on Minnie Backhouse, wife of James Fletcher Backhouse. ti< miner. The husband' said that on the Saturday night his'wife and' a neighbor had been to a picture theatre, and when he arrived home he found them discussing the- pictures they .had se*u. The neighbor' left, and he and bits (wife continued 1 the conversation. She ' asked him, "How jjo they do when they mo being !>hot?''" referring to 6ome M'f-lie tlepictwl. Rackhouse then rebored thai, in his waistcoat he hnn■n*n«?d to have a small pistol which he had cmrried for three years and never used. Hp pulled it ont.and. pointing it at his wife, remarked in joke. "Hands unl" Tli© pistol went off, and his wife who w»s struck iji the breast, exclaimed, "Oh, you bare shot me!" Backhonsei explained that he hid fired the pistol the - whole of tho time it had been in his nossession and', ,in not know it was .loaded,. Before the inquest ha ws» rnnMd*d' on' bail at th« pcltao court on a ohiawrti of QWliag Wa wife's Ml.