TAKES POISON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 17 January 1931, Page 6

TAKES POISON

FORMER AUCKLAND BUSINESS MAN • : ONCE IN GOOD CIRCUMSTANCES (By Telegraph—(Special to “The Mail") CHRISTCHURCH, 16th January. “I think I’m all in. I’ve taken poison,” said Henry Mathias, as lie got out of the car he was in, walked over to a nearby wall in Durham street, near Cashel street, and lay down beside it, apparently not at all worried. He was. rushed to Christchurch Hospital, but an hour and a half later this man, at one time one of the best known manufacturing jewellers in Auckland, was dead. When Mathias’ business was at its height he employed more than 20 men, and was comparatively wealthy. He was a racehorse owner, but he had hard luck of one sort and another, and in Christchurch he had been working as a salesman. It is stated that he had a difference with his employer, Mr J. M. Giles. Giles with another man and Mathias drove round to a garage in Durham street to see a ear of his, which Mathias had been using. He had not gone more than a few yards from the car when Mathias, who had stayed in it, beckoned to him, told him he had taken poison, and walked calmly over to the wall where he lay down. Giles had no idea when the poison was taken, whether it was while Mathias was in the boardinghouse or while he was in the car. Certainly, however, his death was as strange as it was for a man like him, an Indian, to come to New Zealand, make a small fortune in ihe jewellery business and then to lose it all again. An inquest will be held.