SHOCKING DEATH OF TWO CHILDREN FROM DRINKING RUM.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 87, 10 September 1874, Page 3

SHOCKING DEATH OF TWO CHILDREN FROM DRINKING RUM.

The Moruya Examiner (N.S.W.) of August 15th says :—A shocking occurrence, terminating in the death of two children, took place on Sunday, 9th inst, at the residence of Mr Hunt, a settler on the Tuross river, near Cadgee. It appears that on the preceding (Saturday) evening, Mr Hunt and a friend, Mr Lonsdale, of Wandello, reached the residence of the former, irom Nerrigundah, taking with them a pi t of rum. They had three or four small drinks each, and went to bed, leaving the bottle standing on the table. On Sunday morning, whilst Mrs Hunt had gone some little distance for some flour, which, after being dropped from a packhorse, her husband bad placed inside of a fence on the preceding night, two of her children, seven and eight years of age respectively, got at the rum, mixed it with tea, and seem to have drunk nearly the whole of it, and shocking to relate they suffered to su'h an extent that i ne died on the evening of that day, and the other about 4 o’clock next morning. When the mother returned with the flour she found the eldest child retching, and on inquiry learned that they had been drinking the spirits, but of course never supposed that the end would be so shockingly fatal. On Monday Seniorconstable Keon brought the intelligence to the coroner, and Dr Boot being unable to leave home on account of two or three cases claiming his attention, Dr Gentle was telegranhed for from Braid wood to make a post mortem examination of the bodies of the deceased children. After arrival on Tuesday the Braidwood doctor and the coroner started at once to the scene of the accident, and the coroner’s inquest was held on Wednesday last. From the evidence we gather that the two children, a boy and a girl, on Sunday afternoon, after drinking the rum, got lockjawed, and were afterwards seized with convulsions. Dr Gentle gave it as his opinion that two glasses of spirits would produce coma and death in children of the age of deceased. The jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict that the deceased Albon Hunt and Sarah Ellen Hunt came to their death through taking an overdose of alcoholic stimulants.