FATAL AFFRAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 858, 2 July 1910, Page 5

FATAL AFFRAY.

MAN. STRUCK IN HOTEL BAR. AND DROPS DEAD. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Auckland, July 1. As the result of an affray in the Waitemat.i Hotel to-night, a middleaged man, named John Mason Price, was killed.

l'rice, who is stated to have been a cook at tho Lake Hotel, Takapuna, was said to liavo been standing in tho bar by himself perfectly sober, when another man came in, but whether by himself or not no onu seems to know, as the bar was crowded at the time. Ho was, however, heard to say to Price: "You cadger. Price replied: "You withdraw that remark."

Apparently tlie other man would not do so, for Price went to hit him, and, at this strtgo, another man, at the side of Price, is alleged to have struck the latter a heavy blow on the jaw,. Price falling-to the ground with a t-hutl.

Immediately all was confusion, and in tho commotion the assailant and the other man escaped. Price was pinked up by stvera! people, arid found to bp dead, but until a post-mortem is made, it will bo impossible to say whether death was tho result of the blow or the fall.

Price was ,42 years of age, ■ and his assailant is said to have been a big, burly man—a wharf labourer. Tho police have a certain man under suspicion, and are searching for him.