THE REPORTED DEATH FROM SCALDING NEAR REEFTON.

Kumara Times, Issue 3059, 23 August 1886, Page 2

THE REPORTED DEATH FROM SCALDING NEAR REEFTON.

Au inquest was held yesterday (says the Inangahua Times of Friday) upon the remains of John Smith, whose sudden death was referred to in oar last issue. According to the testimony of Dr. Whitton, death resulted from natural causes, accellerated by alcoholic poisoning, and may be added, possibly exposnre. So far as the evidence went, there was nothing to prove anything like cruelty or inhumanity, in fact, quite the other way. It is a matter of surprise that not a particle of evidence was forthcoming to account for the burns on the person of deoeased. Of course the opinion of Dr. Whitton that the scalds alluded to were not a contributory cause of death, deprived the circumstance of this gap in the evidence of the significance which would otherwise attach to it. But the fact remains unexplained, and people are left to speculate upon it as they think proper. The case may be summed up from the evidence as follows:—The deceased went to work in the Inglewood on the sth instant, and continued there in apparently good health up to the 14th. On the evening of the next day he enters a public house, and remains there without anything being known as to his real condition until noon the next day, when he is carried out in a dying state. The case i 3 a sad one, and typical of many which" belong rather to a past era of goldfields history.