AN AMAZING STORY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9367, 9 February 1909, Page 7

AN AMAZING STORY.

A moat astounding narrative related to the Melbourne police by a young man, 21 years of age, who is a grocer’s assistant, working at North Carlton, anti living in the same suburb, is being investigated by Detective Bannon. The informant, according to his own complaint, appears to be pursued through life by a furious and mysterious, ,but remarkable old gentleman, who insists upon being a father to him. The young man, who is engaged to be' married, has a decided objection to being fathered by a casual and impulsive old person in the street, and when the first meeting occurred at Clifton Hill soma time ago he repudiated the alleged relationship with scorn. ‘‘Procure your birth certificate, my son,” pleaded the old man, “and yon will find that I am your father.” Then the young man again denied him. At this all the aged man’s affection turned to in- i dignation, and he “welted” his alleged offspring so effectually that ho “laid him out.” “I insist upon the production of the birth certificate,” the young- man heard dully as he was “taking the count,” and when he recovered bis senses, the horrible

old pe'rson had vanished. A month later a similar thing happened one night in East Melbourne— same old man, same _ old ■claim, same old welt. The business was becoming serious. The police information saysjthe young man] on his wav to see his young lady at Clifton Hill, to whom he is enigagsd, was once more confronted by the terrible old man, who bounced out on him in a lonely place, and again demanded his birth certificate and the instant acknowledgment of his parentage. The young man once again refused. Then the old •fellow danced rouud him so fast that he made his head swim, and prodded him with a straight left and a right cross, etc., and floored him. The young man then, stung into retaliation, knocked the “old ’un” down, but the latter once more floored him, and sitting down hard open him, lectured him on his cruel unnatural repudiation, and forced him to’drink “something out of a bottle that would do him good.” He drank, and the old man went away, saying that he would call on him again. The young man then found that he had a very bad pain inside of him, and, staggering to the girl’s home, that he had been poisoned. Dr. Bradford, of Clifton Hill, was called in, and he found every symptom’of poisoning by some irritant drug. He applied the stomach pump, and handed the contents to the police for analysis. The detective is of opinion that the young man was poisoned, but, after inquiry, he doubts very much whether any old man had a hand in administering it. There the matter stands for the present.