FATHER'S DREADFUL MISTAKE

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1012, 30 December 1910, Page 4

FATHER'S DREADFUL MISTAKE

ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS HIS < ■ DAUGHTER. An accident of peculiar sadness, which caused tho death of a little girl four years old, happened at Molesworth Street, North Melbourne, on the night of December 21, • when Michael A. Hamilton shot his daughter; Dorothy, four years, through the centre of the forehead, and killed, her. The whole affair, was over in a moment, and," according to Hamilton, who, when interviewed by , the police, was in a state of distraction, it was the outcome of a dreadful mistake. He was handling a revolver when his little daughter approached the table at which he sat, and said: "Let me see it, Daddy. How does it shoot?". Hamilton began to explain, to the child how tho weapon worked, and, thinking it was un- ; loaded,' cocked it and pulled the trigger. A cartridge was in the revolver, andthe bullet pierced the child's forehead. She fell, and a stream of blood rilled from the wound. A doctor was called in, and he, finding that the child was not dead, hurried her off in; his motor-car to the Children's Hospital, where Dr. O'Brien, who admitted her, performed an operation to extract the bullet. Nothing, however, could save the. child. The bullet was embedded deep Li her brain, and she sank and died soon after the operation.