A FATAL FIGHT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1728, 19 April 1913, Page 6

A FATAL FIGHT.

« AFFRAY ON HARBOUR PONTOON CHARGE OF MURDER. (By Telegraph.—Prese .Association.) Auckland, April 18. Two men. fought this afternoon on tho Harbour Board's pile-driving pontoon. One of them, Manuel Santos, is dead as tho result of the fray, and Harold Gladstone Brown is in custody, charged with wilful murder. Tho fray occurred at 3.30 p.m., and tho whole occurrence was witnessed from the old western tee of the Queen Street wharf by Mr. A. E. I). Bourne, who is a cycle agent. According to a statement made to tho police, ho Was. onlv a few yards away, i watching the operation of pile-driving, \ when he saw the first signs of the dis- I turbance. 1H was apparently at first an i ordinary fight. He ivalched the two men j sparring on the deck of tho pontoon, and ! ut first thought they were not in earnest, ' but it was soon evident that whatever I their difference was'the fight was a seri- |

cms one. It was not long beforo bantos began to get the wo::st of it, ond he was

| finally overcome by Brown, who forced him back over a hawser, which was stretched taut a couple of feet above tho deck. Santos fell heavily backwards upon the closed hatch, with Brown on top of hiin. Mr. Bourne said both men then rose and continued the fight, but it hud then reached such a sta.jo that soino of the other men on the pontoon rushed in to separate the two struggling men, calling to them to stop. Snubs moved over towards the engine-lions? of the pile-driver, and, according to Mr, Bourne's statement, was standing with his back to Brown, when the latter went over to him and struck him a heavy blow under tho car. Ho followed this up by taking both hands to bantos and pushing him into tho watei.,, There was a boat alongside the pontoon, and when Mr. Bouino next saw Sanlos he had got into tho boat and was trying to chmb back from it to tho pontoon, llus he was unable to do, nnd he fell back into tho boat.. Then he got up again, and the men on the pontoon helped him on board. Ho was in a very exhausted state and collapsed at once, and his companions carried him "into the .engine-house. He .sat up, but died a little later. . , Some of the. Harbour Board officials were at ouco apprise,:! of tho occurrence, and Mr. C. E. Mills, storemnn in the boards employ, went out to get assist-' once. Dr. Tcwsley declared Santos to bo dead. Brown had by that time gono ashore, and Mills at once went up tho whart after him. He saw him hurrying along Queen Street/and told Constable Claasen, who was on duty in the locality, what had happened. Brown was promptly followed and slopped by tho constable, who took him down to the whurf polico station, and left him there while ho made a brief .inquiry on the scene of the occurrence. Then he then took Brown to the watchhouse and charged him with the wilful murder of Santos The deceased, Manuel Santos, was a native of the Ladrono Islands, and was a married man, 37 years of ago. Ho had no family.