TRAGIC WEEK-END

Hokitika Guardian, 24 December 1929, Page 6

TRAGIC WEEK-END

SYDNEY’S GRIM RECORD. ELEVEN VIOLENT DEATHS. SYDNEY, Dec. 12. The last week-end in Sydney was one of the grimmest in the history of the city. Eleven people met violent deaths within the metropolitan area, and the City Morgue on Sunday night was a place of horror, filled with the victims. Death in many starkly tragic forms swept from the sky, the sea, the earth, and from smoking pistol barrels, and a knife. Two men were ferociously murdered in the famous Surry Hills district. Iwo eh il dr re n were drowned in water holes. In an aeroplane crash at Mascot a woman was terribly injured, and she died Inter. A fisherman was swept into the sea and taken by’ a huge shark. A steward disappeared as a boat was entering the Sydney Heads, and a motorist was killed in the city when a motor-ear struck a pole. And there were others. Two charges of murder have arisen from this grim record. One concerned the death of Arthur Lange who was disembowelled with a knife, and the other the death of Alexander Bedford. Bedford is supposed to have quarrelled with another man over a woman. The other man pushed him down, and the lall killed him Lange was in a dreadful state when discovered by the police in a borne at Surry Hills, and he had no hope of recovery from the start. An arrest has been made in each case.

.Mystery surrounds the disappearance of the steward, Torrance John Lewis, of Balmain. Lewis was last seen alive at 8 o’clock on .Saturday night, .lie was then in good spirits, according to other members of the crew of the Aka room But when he was reported missing no trace of him could be found.

Although everything was done to save her life. All's Irene Marie Burate, known in musical circles as Miss Irene de Luca, injured in an aeroplane crash in the city, died the following day. The tragic feature about this fatal accident was that her husband, who is a city business man. did not know that his wife had been injured until a .friend pointed out to him the news in the Sunday papers. ‘•'l had no idea that she was up in the aeroplane,” said the husband. “I have frequently pleaded with her not to go up in aeroplanes. I have never been in an aeroplane myself.” The couple had been estranged for some time, and it was reported that a reconciliation had been reached on the day the accident occurred. The list of tragedies included two eases of drowning. A girl of ten, paddling in the water-hole at the rear of her home, got out of her depth and cried out help. Her mother heroically plunged in after lier. but it was too late. The child had disappeared. The distracted mother was herself on the point of sinking when a youth heard her cries and went to her rescue. On Saturday afternoon a small Ivov was paddling a canoe in the liarhour. He said to his companions that he would have a dive, lie dived, and he was not seen again. His body was recovered tin* billowing day in 20 feet of water.