A MODERN CRUSOE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 908, 30 August 1910, Page 5

A MODERN CRUSOE.

LEAVE TO PRESUME DEATH. In making an application in the Probate Division (England) for leave presume the death of John Willis Kirkaldy, a South Sea trader, Mr. Powers said that Mr. Kirkaldy emigrated to the South Seas in 1885, and traded in New.Zealand and tho Pacific Islands (saj-s the "Standard of Empire"). In 1892 he was shipwrecked on an unnamed and uninhabited island of the' Solomon Group, where he remained, much , like Robinson Crusoe, for three years. Then he was rescued by a chance vessel calling ai- the island for water. There was a man Friday there in the shape of a man named Van Brun. After they were taken off the island they wont to New Zealand. Mr. Kirkaldy then wrote to his family stating that he suffered from ague contracted on the island, and from Auckland (New Zealand), where ho was staying, ho wrote saying he was "a mere wreck of myself." From Sydney (N.S.W.) he-wrote saying he was very ill, and that he had arranged to return to New Zealand, and afterwards, was going on "a big trading" in the Solomon Islands. Several letters were subsequently written to Mr. Kirkuldy, which came back through the dead-letter office, and ho had not since bean heard of. Leave wns given to presume Mr. Kirkaldy's death as from 1895.