Fatal Accidents

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 61, 23 November 1886, Page 2

Fatal Accidents

The record of accidental deaths in this district is assuming a gloomy length, and day after day fresh names are added to the list. The question naturally arises whether these accidents were preventable, or whether, they occurred through the contributory negligence of the sufferers, or the carelessness of their fellow workmen. If we might accept the rider appended to the verdict of the Coroner's jury in the case of the late John Derby who was killed by a tree falling oa him, as giving expression to a consensus of public opinion on the subject, the reply would be in the affirmative. It i happens, however, it does not represent the opinion of exports who have declared that not only was the deceased an experienced and skilled bushman, but there was not a novice

in the party. The accident was of that description almost impossible to ( have foreseen or guarded against. We join with the jury in deploring the number of casuahties by which so many useful and industrious men have been killed or, seriously injured, yet we do not see clearly how the Government can interfere. £he only remedy which suggests itself to us is for bushmen to avoid cheap contracts, where it is necessary to rush the work through to pay the provision bills.