RIVER ACCIDENT IN WELLINGTON.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 210, 10 February 1875, Page 3

RIVER ACCIDENT IN WELLINGTON.

The following, which we (Post) condense from the Wanganui Herald , affords a pleasing contrast to the late occurrence at the Rangitata, and adds force to the advice we tendered yesterday to ladies boating or driving, always to sit still. Our contemporary learns that Mr and Mrs James Prosser, lately of the Crown and Anchor Hotel, Wellington, but who have now assumed the proprietary of the Telegraph Hotel, Otaki, had a very narrow escape from getting drowned in the Otaki River on Saturday morning last. Accompanied by a Miss Williams and another lady, they had almost reached their destination. They were travelling in a close carriage, and had succeeded in getting along without mishap of any kind, until their future home was actually in view. The driver was a stranger to the coast, and the horses were unused to deep water. The wrong ford —that is the former one—was taken, in which since the last flood several deep and treacherous holes have been washed out. Cautiously and timorously the vehicle proceeded, deeper and deeper the water, the current also proving difficult to contend against, the river flowing very rapidly owing to the occurrence ot a slight fresh, which also caused the water to be eo muddy that bottom could

not be seen, and thus the holes could not be avoided. It was soon apparent that the other side would not be reached in safety. The water was running into the cab, greatly alarming the occupants, who however sat still, and allowed no indication of the uneasiness which they one and all felt to be visible by movement or exclamation. Eventually the horses, thoroughly terrified at the depth of water, to which they were, never previously accustomed, refused to move, Mr Prosser was equal to the emergency, and under the trying circumstances never lost his presence of mind. Managing to get outside the cab, and having previously directed the females to unrobe, lest the worst coming to the worst, and all being thrown into the water, they might not be encumbered in their efforts to reach the shore with an unnecessary quantity of clothing, he directed the driver, to whose body he first made fast a rope, to get out and release the horses, By these means the horses were unhooked, and Mr Prosser, mounting one of them, carried Mrs Prosser safely to shore, though the rapidly rising current made this a matter of considerable difficulty. Returning, ho conveyed Miss Williams and the other female on the subsequent trips to terra firma ; and the thoroughly frightened ladies had to make the best of their way to the township, which was nearly a mile distant, on foot. The driver got away on the other horse, and so the whole party reached Otaki safely, the cab being temporarily abandoned to its fate. To all is due credit, but to the ladies especially, for the admirable coolness, self-control, and presence of mind displayed by them under circumstances of an unusually trying nature.