MOANA TRAGEDY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 104, 27 January 1919, Page 6

MOANA TRAGEDY

INQUIRY CONTINUED

EVIDENCE AS TO WHAT THE VICTIMS

.-..■ .-DRANK

...'.;,, ,Jhe inquiry,.into the cause cf the eud■j.W. .'den ideaths' of :Dr. -.Grimm and Miss Ing- .''.. say Mllsbister on board the Moaua on ' 'January .3, while .'the vessel was oiv a '.'.Voyage: from San Francisco to Wellington, was ; .continued before'the Coroner .. (Mr..'W.G. bidden, S.M.) on- Saturday .-. morning. 'Mr. Pi S. K. Macassey al>- ••'■' peared for the Crown, Mr. Douglas Jackeon for a relative of .Miss Isbister, Mr. P. Levi for the Union Steam Ship Conv- „._ pany.and Mr. H. Kennedy for Thomson, ■> : \' Lewis, and , Co.; 'cordial(manufacturers. '.' 'Hubert ,Frank-Kessal,.metallurgist, of Jit.' Ga'mbier,-South Australia, who was a passenger on the Moana, said that after .the deaths had taken place lie examined the contents'of .the glass out of which one of the deceased had tnken n drink, .■■ and detected the odonr of bitter almonds, which was characteristic of cyanide. He "-then went into the bar end asked the , chief steward if he had kept the sodawater bottles that had been -opened that .morning. The . chief steward said ho 6'melt the'bottle's, hut'noticed nothing ■•• peculiar.-, About ten , or a dozen bottles of .soda-water had been opened. In ono -'""of the bottles 'witness detected a similar ''"odour fo'that whWh he had'emelt in the. 'glass. . He had had a good deal of ex!l perierice of cyanide', and: believed the ..'" smell he detected was that of cyanide ! of . potassium, -i .■ . ." ': . .