GROSS STUPIDITY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1566, 10 April 1874, Page 177

GROSS STUPIDITY.

Daily Southern Cross. Sometimes strange traditions take bold of the vulgar mind. Even in the free r ' atmosphere of our colonial skies it appears that c most absurd, almost lunatic, notion may so operate, as that a collection of what one might, imagine to be sensible human beings, should be blind to the die- ■ tates of the most ordinary common sense, ' and prevent a promptitude of action which even a fool might see was an obviously necessary proceeding. A notion ; seems prevail among many ignorant i .people respecting persons accidently killed, or whd may have killed themselves, that •' : 'they ibfist not be touched in any way until the civil authority, in the person of a policeman, shall have seen, the body, To , ; such ap extept does, this, opinion prevail . that a crowd of grown men in Wellington 1 ‘absolutely '-prevented ; a person from rieftlui'ng. a child Still living, but who had .. fallen off tW ,breakwater into the water. Frightful though -the fact is, it is a fact the child was literally drowned jn presence of this mob of fools whose senseless ‘■ J cries deterred one of the number, a little less foolish than the rest, from taking the boy from out of the water. A woman’s entreaties, her boldness in leaping some six or seven feet to induce men to save the ut- boy, bad no timely effect on that stolid crowd, and the boy, lying on the water ~ with bis eyes open and bis lips moving, Was drowned by the delay of sheer ignorance, and an unaccountable absence of r that feeling we bad thought common to us make exertions to preserve a fellowcreature from death. The sad story is soon told, A young boy named Alexander Anderson was playing with a large dog, at Mr Hunter’s Wharf in Wellington, throwing into the water sticks which the dog brought out. It . appears from the evidence of another child, Who was told by his younger brother, that the dog had “ pushed Alick into the Water. 1 ’ What occurred afterwards is graphically narrated by Mrs Mclntosh, who took out the child, which, bad her entreaties been attended to, would now almost certainly have been alive. The following is her evidence as given before ..the coroner and a jury.i We mark by italics some of the most astonishing parts which relate to the apathy and stolidity of that mob of men:— Mrs Arabella M'lntosh, wife of Mr , % -MTntosh, landlord of the New Zealander Hotel, gave evidence as followslt about a quarter past 1 o’clock on Monday a man whose name I do not know came to the hotel and said, “ Mrs M’lntosh are all your, children right ?” I said “ Yes, so far as I know.” He replied, “No they are not,, there is one lying dead in the water.” I - ran down, and I saw the child was not mine. He was lying.in the water with his eyes open. I ashed-to.have the child taken out of the water and the memoho were there said “ no.” They seemed afraid to take the • i child out I <M> net ‘ know why, but they ,t said the police would interfere. ; I had the boy taken out of the water and placed on 0 the wharfand some man cut his clothes ■' l off. I lield ! the child over the wharf, and two quarts of water and a lot of food came - up, ,Ite face, gpt dark. for a blanket and “wrapped the, boy The .tide was

coming in at the time, and tbafc made me I more anxious to get him, in case it should take him back again. They told me the j police would interfere. I did not knofc what to do at first, but I thought I toiild not do any harm. I asked Mr Wakefield to take him up, but he icouldnot. Mr George Crawford stood there and looked, and thought it would be all right. There were twenty or thirty people there. I jumped doivn higher than the door. I asked them to take the child out of the water, and they hesitotedon account of the police: They said the police would iuterefero if they touched the child. I asked, several. I kept crying to them to take the child out of the water. I asked Mr Crawford and he said he thought" I 'might venture to take the child out of the water. He said he thought I might have it taken out the water. He stood looking at me. None helped until 1 called Lingard down off the bank. They \ did not take any active measures to have the I child removed. Upon Air Crawford giving | his opinion that the child might be removed from the water, Wakeford and Lingard moved it and placed it on the wharf. I had the clothing cut, and rolled the child on the wharf on its stomach, and sent for blankets. The deceased never showed any signs of life. The body vvbs cold, out the back was rather warm. The wharf is only used by fishermen, and as a play place for children. There was a steamer there last week. This is not the first child that has been drowned there. It would be better if a fence were placed across the wharf to prevent children from getting on it. "I should think" (continued MrsM'lntosh, on further exauiiuatii.i.) •« that quite five minutes elapsed after 1 ca if down before the child was taken out iff the water." The reporter adds, within parenthesis, "Mrs Mintoslt first sail ten minutes, and still thought that time had elapsed, but substituted five to be within a safe limit." " All that time," she adds, " the waves were coming over the child's face. The people said they were not allowed to touch a dead body ; but they took no steps to find out whether there was. any life or not. George Wakeford, the nun who was appealed to by Mrs M'lntosh, gives further evidence : I went to take the child out of the water? and sixty or seventy people.screamed out, " You must not touch it; the police must take it out of the water." I made two or three attempts. I do not believe for a minute that the child was dead when I got down there. He had not been in the water more than ten minutes. (The witness explained that within ten minutes of the time the alarm was given to Mrs Mcintosh he had heard children playing on the wharf.) I daresay there were upwards of one hundred people there, but there were so many halloaing out that they did not know what to do for the best. When I lifted the child on the wharf it was not to say really dead. The child was perfectly warm, and so it was when we got the blanket for it. Mr, Anderson : Were they grown up persons or boys ? Witness : Grown up persons, not children.

To the Coroner; / had my hands nearly on the child when they made a regular yelping out, " You must not touch the child unless the police are here" I said, " Why carit vx take it out?" The Coroner: It would have been better to have taken the child out without stopping to argue the point. Witness: Yes, but a man does not like to get himself into trouble. There are very ■curious laws in Wellington, and the best thing is to keep on the careful side of the hedge. The people said I must not touch a dead body unless the police were there. I donot think the child was really dead when I jumped off the breastwork. No one would get off the breastwork at all. They all stood looking at the little infant in the water.. The child was inthe writer ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, fully that, before I got Mr Craivford's consent. • The Coroner ? It appears - -to-jptf now a very monstrous and: extraordjnary filing not to have taken lip. the child." as soon as it was discovered." ' : ' ;: ' ::l • Witness: I suppose I was confused. It certainly does appear so.; There were many people present, and not/me offered to|get. off the breastwork. ' Mrs M'lhtosh' was' assisted by another female, one of her servants. We.had the child on the wharf fqr> a quarter of an Jiour before a policeman, came up, A. doctor had been sent for.' ■ ',' Sergeant Monasrhan'? What-is yoifr reason for, thinking that the child was alive when you saw it in the water ? '' Witness : Its lips mated. It vias warm When I lifted ilup,'and when the policeman took it away in the cart it was quite warm I can assure you. No wonder that the jury added a severe rider to their verdict of "accidental death," if.accidental it was, and if, morally speaking, this noble band of eyewitnesses were not accessories in the fact. The' rider- was as follows :-rThe juror* wish to express the strongest censure upon those present for, the inhumanity and ignorance displayed in not at once removing .the body of the deceased when first discovered. One feels that the story is incredible. That such a state of things could exist in a;Christian country, among peopie. who: have .the Press and the pulpit, who possess the political franchise, are fathers, sons, and brothers, as this precious crowd must have, and be,—who en jay all the other blessings of what we term " our civilization," is what is hard indeed to believe. Yet, we have quoted the facts as sworn to before a coroner and a jury, and the little premature grave in * Wellington cemetery bears witness. We should fancy that that locality will rarely be visited by any of the thirty or forty grown men (some say sixty or a

hundred) who were inactive spectators o that child's death. If thej do go ther that little grave should bring a blush t their cheeks as long as memory lives The father should record on the gravestone how the child was permitted to «ii. Parents who read these lamentable faccan scarcely fad to shudder as the read.and marvel that such things cml be.