Sad Fatalities

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 105, 31 October 1893, Page 2

Sad Fatalities

FOUR DEATHS BY DROWNING. (PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.) New Plymouth, This Day. Late la6t night Inspector Thomson received a message from Constable Seymour, stationed at "White Cliffs, that George Brown and William Turnbnll, settlers at Urenui, were drowned while fording the Mahakuturo river on horsoback yesterday. Brown and Tnrnbull, Who Were married to two sisters, had been to Mokau, anil were returning home. A Maori who was sitting on the hill says he saw two men come down to ford the river, but no sooner had they got fairly into the water than they seemed to be in trouble, and one horse and its rider disappeared, and the other horse scrambled up the bank riderless. The deceased were 25 and 80 yeart of age respectively. The police are dragging the river for the bodies. It is supposed that a quicksand was the cause of the accident. Murchison, October 30. A sad fatality occurred here this morning. Mrs O'liourke and Miss Mclnroe were crossing the Bnller river at the ford close by Mrs O'Rourke's farm, when the horse jibbed and broke loose from the trap. Mr Bennett, who saw what had happened, went to the assistance of the ladies with a horEe and dray. When they were in the act of throwing a child they had with them into the dray the buggy turned over, and both ladies fell into the river, They were -carried away with the current and drowned. The bodien have not been recovered. Mrs O'Rourke was a widow with a large family. Miss Me- i Inroe was tho daughter of the late Mrs Mitchell, who lost her life by the recent coach accident. Both ladies were highly esteemed in this district, and their untimely end has cast a gloom over the whole place. This accident should be a warning to the Government of the necessitv of placing a bridge over the Buller River at this point.