A SHOCKING ACCIDENT,

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 295, 20 December 1901, Page 2

A SHOCKING ACCIDENT,

SOLDIER SHOT BY HIS COMRADE. ' FATAL EFFECT OF A SILLY ACTION. (Special to Times.) Auckland, last night. Trooper AVriglcy, a member of the Seventh Contingent, writing to his brother in Waihi from Newcastle, gives an account of the accidental shooting of one of the members of the contingent. Many Gisborne members wore present when the accident occurred. He writes: “ The other evening, at about 7 o’clock, we were seated round our camp fire, when a member of the Canterbury Corps rode up, holding in his hand a Mauser rifle, which he had got from a captured Boer. As ho came into the radius of light a comrade exclaimed, “ Hallo! what have you got there ?” at the same time rising to bis feet and walking over to the trooper on horseback. Taking from him the rifle, which ho held extended in his hand, and turning round the rille, he pointed it in the direction of the circle round the fire. The next thing we knew was that it hud been accidentally discharged, point blank, at our group. With a smothered cry Corporal Byrne, of the Canterbury corps, fell slightly forward. Wo rushed to his assistance, and as wo raised him ho looked up aud then fell back, dead, in our arms. The sudden awfulness of the affair for a moment paralysed us, and it would have been hard to find a more wretched and unhappy lot of men than we were that night.”