HONEYMOON TRAGEDY.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 942, 15 July 1903, Page 2

HONEYMOON TRAGEDY.

VICAR OFFERS PRAYER IN A STREET.

An unusual sceue was witnessed in Braywiok road, Maidenhead, on the morniug of May 28tb, in connection with a shooting tragedy. Mr Gordon J. Spriggs, a civil engineer, son of Mr Gordon Spriggs, of Forest Gate, London, recently married Miss Evelyn Hughes, an actress, who has beeu playing the principal character in “ The Bello of New York” on tour, and the couple were spending part of their honeymoon at Maidenhead.

In the morning Mr Spriggs left his wife in order to catch a train to London, and when walking towards Maidenhead shot himself in the head. The Rev. C. A. Raymond, vicar of Bray, who happened to be passing in a carriage at the time, propped up Mr Spriggs’ head on a cushion, and then in . the presence of about twenty people offered a prayer for his recovery. The scene was of an impressive and affecting character. The bystanders with uncovered heads reverently joined in the Lord’s Prayer, led by the vicar, who stood behind the proppod-up head of the dying man.

A little later Mrs Spriggs appeared, and in her grief prostrated herself on her husband’s body. Mr Spriggs, who was unconscious, was removed to the Maidenhead Cottage Hospital, where he died soon after admission.

It is stated that the deceased, who had

lately been unwell and depressed and was under a doctor, had just come into £4OOO through an invention of his, and appeared to be much elated when he left his wife in the morning.