An Alpine Tragedy.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 243, 22 October 1901, Page 3

An Alpine Tragedy.

One of the saddest of the many sad Alpine tragedies of the present season, says a Geneva despatch, is that which has just caused the death of a young girl of 18. named Dotl, on the Hoben tioll, near Berehbesgardeu. She was the beauty of the village, observed and admired of every tourist. She was gathering edelweiss with her father, who lowered her by a rope over the mountain side to a ledge below to gather the blooms. Through a boulder giving way, the father stumbled down the mountain, the rope slipping from his hands as he fell forward. By grasping at a protruding crag, he succeeded in steadying himself, aud though badly bruised and shaken, he descended slowly to look for his daughter, only to find the poor child lying dead and shockingly mangled from a fall of several hundred feet. Many other fatalities are reported from oue or other of the Alpine ranges during the present week. Two brothers named Puringer fell over a precipice in the Rax Alps, one being killed right out and the other fatally injured. Edelweiss is also responsible for the death of an unnamed mountaineer near Innsbruck. Professor Karl Odorff, of Presburg College, has been killed by falling over a precipice while climbing the Triglaw, in the Carnniolan Alps. A Vienna telegram says : —lt has long been known that the edelweiss and other Alpine flora are threatened with extermination by the folly of their admirer?, who, not content with the bloom, uproot the whole plant. The French Alpine Departments have already taken action to preserve the mountain plants against their "friends.” Now the Landtag of Lower Austria is moving in the same direction. A Government Bill before the Chamber proposes serious penalties for the uprooting of edelweiss or other mountain flowers. For a first offence, there will be a substantial fine, with fifteen days’ imprisonment as the alternative to non-payment.