Peculiar Shooting Affair.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 69, 1 March 1895, Page 4

Peculiar Shooting Affair.

CnmsxcHucH, February 25. A shooting affair is reported to have taken place at Port Hills this afternoon, when Mr John W. Otten, who looks after Marley’s Cottage, about four miles beyond the Convalescent Home, was wounded by a halfcaste Maori boy named Daniel Kelly. The boy had been committed to Burnham from Auckland, and then licensed out to a person at Lincoln. There* he is suspected of having broken into a house and stolen a double barrelled gun. From Lincoln the boy made his way down to Hills. A few nights back he is suspected of having broken into the cottage of Marley’s and stolen a watch and chain. Last night he is supposed to have broken in again and stolen a oarbine and a number of cartridges and some other articles. This morning Otten started out to look for the boy. He says hie dog started a rabbit, and he went into the scrub to try to get a shot at it, when he was suddenly con - fronted by the Maori boy, who at a distance of only two yards fired a shot gun, wounding Otten on the right side. The latter returned the shot but is un - able to say whether he wounded the boy . Otten came down as far as Cashmere, Wilson’s coachman bringing him on from there to the hospital. A detachment of police at once set out for Hills after the boy. On examining the wound at the hospital, the surgeon was unable to find any trace of shot. The police who went to tbe Port Hills to search for the Maori boy concerned in the shooting case with the man Otten, found him very seriously injured, the charge of shot having struck him in the left jaw, which was smashed, and the shot having lodged in the mouth, and at the base of the brain. He was brought to the hospital, but is not expected to live through the night. The hospital surgeon, who examined Otten, found his face burned and blackened by powder, and a graze on top of the head which might have been caused by the wad.