A ROMANTIC STORY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8921, 14 September 1907, Page 4

A ROMANTIC STORY.

I Loi-tDOK, August 2. There was quite a flavour of j ' romance about au application which ; was made to Mr Justice Bucteuill, in ! the Probate, Divorce, and Ad- ' miraltv Court on Monday, when he j i was ashed to presume the death of a i young man who, some 27 years ago, i went out to New Zealand, viz., in ! June, 1881. The name of this young man was Harry Watts, who was born in 1863, j i and who, when last beard of, had. been working as head ploughman at Eveburn station, near Naseby, New Zealand, where he was supposed to have died shortly after September 30tb, 1888. At the time he left England for New Zealand he was, it was stated in Court, “an idle and extravagant young man of intemperate habits. ” . For some years after be landed in New Zealand he seems to have disappeared,' but iu September, 1888, it i was ascertained that after arriving at Dunedin lie had gone to the whaling station at Picton. After that he sailed for Akaroa, and subsequently he found his way |to Marrakibo, m the Chatham Islands, wh»a he left his ship and went into the hush. While there he made his way to a Maori pa, became friendly with the Maori chief, who was anxious that the young Englishman should marry ; his daughter and join the tribe. The efforts of the chief iu this ! direction, however, seem to have I been fruitless, for Watts stating that he already was married, fled from the pa, to die, it is supposed, iu obscurity. All that is known of his subsequent movements is that lie got back to Picton, and then went again to Dunedin, finally being at work at * Naseby, as already mentioned. After perusing the affidavits, Mr Justice Suckuill gave leave to swear the death on or since September 30th 1888, on a further affidavit being filed as to the applicant’s belief that Harry Watts had died a bachelor and intestate. With special reference to this curious case, a London paper remarks: “There are legal ‘corpses’ walking about England to-day. Men who were wrongly certified to have died during the war turned up hale and hearty, to find that their ‘widows’ had done their weeping, drawn the insurance money, and bought the nicest of mourning. Friends presumed the death of a Kentish mau a fortnight ago. They sorrowed for a man taken 'destd from the Thames, identified him, buried him, did everything that friendship could suggest. When all was over the mau whose name had been mB placed upon the burial oortieflate „ walked into his h®me, and had the effrontery to declare himself not dead, and the corpse a pretentious upstart. ’ ’