Unidentified Body.

Manawatu Herald, 25 August 1904, Page 2

Unidentified Body.

Nothing has been elicited to establish the identity of the man whose body was found last -Sunday on the Plimmerton-Pukerua beach. Evidently the body had been there for a month or five weeks, for it was very much shrunken, and the head was missing. This latter circumstance is probably attributable to the action of the sea, the body having been found lying below high-water mark.,, There is great accumulation of driftwood in* the bay, and it is possible -tß3|4he severed head is buried beneath this. The bay where the body was found is one at which the north and south currents meet. The northern current sweeps down from the' Tatgiiaki Bight, and a current from iheTMarlborough and Nelson Sounds ,dsaws in from southward, 1 There are* many French-named settlements and places in the Sounds—the Croixelles, French Pass, D’Urville Island; finding of a boat bearing tfye french name of Contoy, about half a'mile from "where the body was discovered, has been made the "basis of a theory that the deceased drifted away in the boat from one of the French settlements in the Sounds, and was cast ashore at Pukerua, after fie had* suffered s 6 severely front'thirst become temporarily deranged! OSe of the effects of continued thirst is a desire to strip off all clothing. ,- Qnly boots and socks were on the body when it was discovered’ Had the deceased stripped himself for gbekter ease in swimming it is not likelydhat he would have left his boots on. The boat Contoy is not a ship’s, boa{3it is more of a pleasure boat, and is fitted with a centre-board. It has -been knocked about a lot. As the-Sdunds are comparatively isolated, it would perhaps facilitate the identifioatiori of deceased if mariners trading to the ports in those parts would disseminate the information herein givfenl' ' 1