PERILS OF PATEA HILL.

Patea Mail, 27 February 1882, Page 3

PERILS OF PATEA HILL.

A buggy accident of an extraordinary character occurred last evening. The occupants were Mr Solomons, commercial traveller, of Dunedin, and Mr Willis, of Wanganui, and bis son. When descending the Patea hill, where the road is very narrow and steep, the horse shied, and without the slightest warning was precipitated over the bank, a sheer descent of about seventy or eighty feet. Master Willis, who was riding behind, was thrown into the air at once, and after propounding a geometrical problem not to be found in Euclid, alighted safely in a flax bush, from which he surveyed the remainder of the buggy’s flight. When near the bottom, Mr Willis made a flying leap, worthy of an acrobat, and safely arrived on terra Jinna. When he in turn surveyed the scene, Mr Solomons had just accomplished the remainder of the journey, with the buggy wheels upwards on the top of him. In -reply to Mr Willis’s enquiries as to how he felt, he replied that he was not quite sure, but thought he was pretty, comfortable. An examination showed that no harm whatever had been sustained. The horse was held fast by the harness, not a buckle of which had been injured, neither had the buggy sustained any other injury than some trifling damage to the iron work.

After procuring the assistance of passing friends, the buggy was restored to the road, and the travellers resum'd their

interrupted journey. Altogether the escape was most re.markable. Mr Solomons wore a helltopper, and he found to his astonishment that it had not even received the smallest dent, neither wore the articles in the buggy any the worse. So many accidents have occurred on this piece of road, which is one of the most dangerous on the West Coast, that wc feel it a duty to urge on the County Council the necessity of a fence being erected there. Hardly a month passes without some capsizes down that fearful lull. The last serious case was that of Mr and Mrs Mullen. Broken ribs are not accounted much by a County Council, but one or two funerals might cause the Patea hill to be regarded as a public danger.