FATAL ACCIDENT AT PORT CHALMIRS.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 79, 7 August 1863, Page 3

FATAL ACCIDENT AT PORT CHALMIRS.

Another -painful and fatal accident occurred yesterday at Port Chalmers, whic i has lately b«en the scene of so many serious casualties. One manj «as killed almost instantaneously, and another was so seriously injured as Jo necessitate his remoTjal to the Dunedin Hospiiali The accident occurred in connection with an extensive cutting, which is being made in Grey- street, one of the approaches to the jetty aurl the beanh. In exec ting the work two gangs of men are employed, one working up the incline from the harbor and the other lemoving ihe crown of the hill near the intersecting thoroughfare, Scotia-street. It was at this upper cutting that the accident happened. Several were engaged picking out the lower portion of the stiff clay face, which is not more than nine or ten feet high, when a lar&e mass of the material, weighing from six to eight tons suddenly fell upon them, and so covered up two of the number, that it was only after some little time that they were extricated, and the extent of their injuries ascertained. One of the two men, Thomas Bonus, was only able to utter a few words of direction as to the removal of debris, when his-ex-pression changed, and it became apparent that life was waning. He became insensible.. >rßssj£he.d only a few minutes longer, cfjftid died. On a post mortem examination •by Dr Urquhart, it was found that the poor man had been so severely crushed that the abdomen had been split open and the pelvis fractured. The oilier sufferer by .the accident, Robeit Stokes, is understood to have sustained a compound fracture of one of his legs, and to have had the other considerably bruised. He is believed to be a single man. Bonus unfortunately 'eaves a widow in Victoria, beraved of a sober, steady, and industrious husband. The inquesi, it is probably, will 'oo held at Port Chalmers to-day, when it will be elicited whether precautions necessary to avert such an accident were adopted.