MR. SOTHERN.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 112, 10 December 1873, Page 2

MR. SOTHERN.

Mr. Sothern has had the misfortune to kill a man. An account of his encounter on a Californian railway with a ruffianly passenger who hadintruded into a carriage specially reserved for Mr. Sothern’s use appeared a few weeks ago in the American papers and it is now announced that this “ car difficulty ” has had a fatal termination. The first narratives of the affair were written in a lively light-comedy style, and gave one the notion of Lord Dundreary’s engaging, after much provocation, endured with perfect good temper, in a set-to with an over-grown bully, who, in the end, was justly if severely punished for having presumed on his supposed superiority of strength to take an inexcusable liberty. The scene, in fact, recalled a somewhat similar one in “ Used up,” in. which Sir Charles Coldstream polishes off and ultimately throws out of the window an obnoxious blacksmith. The comic scene, however,

has had a tragic ending. The bully, a man named Lawson, has expired, as persons thrown violently out of railway carriages sometimes will do. “James Lawson,” says a Californian paper, quoted by the Era, “died at one o’clock this morning. Sad as the whole affair id, no one can possibly blame Sothern. He was suddenly and savagely struck while quietly expostulating with Lawson, a man over six feet two inches high, and almost douple his weight. Even then, according to the conductor’s evidence, although bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose, he kept his temper, but remained as firm as ever in his determination to have his private car to himself. A second time he requested Lawson to leave, and a second time did Lawson make a rush at him while his back was turned, as he urged the conductor to keep passive. This second cowardly attack did at last rouse him, and, turning round rapidly, Sothern gave him two or three stinging blows, then closed with him, and finally administrated a rapid ‘cross-buttock,’ intending to throw him on the platform, but the man’s struggles called for more force, and he was thrown over the chain at the end of the car. A compound fracture of the right leg and internal injury were the result. Mr. Sothern’s departure is unavoidibly postponed, but no one can doubt the verdict of the coroner’s jury.” — Pall Mall Gazette.