LUCK IN LIFE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 248, 6 February 1917, Page 4

LUCK IN LIFE.

A Fortunate Career. An Australian exchange, referring to Private S. D. Wright, who is a nephew of Mr David McFadden, of Patumhaoe, states as follows:

It is a popular superstition that a person born with a caul will never meet with death through accident. It may be remembered that in June, 1914, a carpenter's labourer (S. D. Wright), whilst employed in the construction of Birt and Co's tall building in Bridge street, city, slipped from a plank and fell from a height of 130 ft and landed on the telegraph wires below. He then crawled along the wires to the pole and slid down it to the footpath. Except for a slight wracking of the nerves and some shock Wright came through his ordeal without receiving any injury It was related afterwards by the man that he was born with a caul, and that he had very many escapes from death or serious accident. He had, it was told, been almost drowned on two occasions—once at Sydney and again at Auckland.

The man's luck apparently will not leave him. He enlisted some time ago and went to Franco, taking part in several of the important engagements in which Anzacs have been engaged. His mother, who lives in Castlereagh street, Redfern, has been officially notified that he is wounded. She previously was informed that he was missing, but as the later report contains the correct nature of his casualty, Mrs Wright is confident that he will be amongst those who are to actually see the war through and will come home whole.

Just before Wright entered the trenches on the occasion of his being wounded, some soldiers in his immediate proximity were killed by a shell explosion. He was not even hit.