TRAGIC END TO PARTY

NZ Truth, Issue 1262, 6 February 1930, Page 4

TRAGIC END TO PARTY

New Year Reveller's Fatal Step (From "N.Z. Truth's" Dunedin Rep.) Fishing from the Port Chalmers wharf on New Year's Day, Charles Wilde was attracted by a pocket-' book floating on the water. The angler hooked out the book, and from a receipt therein identified the property "as that of a man named Bruce. "TWELVE days later, Joseph Potter, a ' waterman, while m his launch, discovered a body floating m the harbor. It was subsequently identified as that of Herbert Lindsay Bruce, Otago Harbor Board employee, who had been missing since New Year's morning. An inquest was opened and adjourned, and the police were faced with the problem of finding out how Bruce met his death... All their efforts, however, failed to bring forth sufficient evidence' to enable the Coroner, Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., when the inquest was reopened, to decide on the manner m which Bruce met his : death, and an open verdict was returned. The evidence went to show that, arriving at Port Chalmers at about 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve, Bruce, Thomas Alexander Tobin and a. man named Smyth commenced a firstfooting itinerary. They were well supplied with liquor. . . The final place of call was at the house of some people named Flynn, where the trio stayed for some time playing the piano, singing and drinking. According to Tobin's evidence, Smith and deceased left Flynn's place about 4 a.m. Reaching the .railway station, the three men sat down, and Smyth endeavored to open a bottle of whisky he had m his possession. Tobin then went to sleep and remembered nothing until about 7 a.m., when he woke up m a railway carriage. Tobin's evidence was slightly m conflict with that previously given- by the man Smyth, who stated that the three of them had gone down, the wharf with the idea of boarding the "Cornwall," and he (Smyth) had left the other two at the foot of the gang-, way. • In returning an open verdict that Bruce was found drowned, Mr. Bundle observed that it was quite evident that heavy drinking had been going on dur- : ing the night, and the assumption was that the three men, Smyth, Tobin and deceased, were under the influence of liquor and one of' them went over the wharf. ' The other two, added the coroner, were unable to give a coherent account of the happening. ; .