KWANTU MARU TRAGEDY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 85, 10 December 1913, Page 5

KWANTU MARU TRAGEDY.

MAGISTERIAL INQUIRY. \ _ * [Pke Press Association.] ■ Auckland, December 9. The inquiry into the circumstances connected with the death of Kikutaro Yefiome was resumed in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, before Mr Cutten, S.M. Mr Cutten found that the cause of deatli was a bullet-wound from a shot fired from a revolver by Bijiro Higashibara, but whether the shot was. fired with intent to commit murder or not there was not sufficient evidence to say. The chief officer or the boat, recalled, said that since the proceedings had been commenced the boatswain had committed suicide. Higashibara left lour letters—one addressed to the captain and officers, one to a particular friend, and one to “everybody on hoard the ship,!’ and one to his wife. These letters had been opened, with the exception of that to his wife, which the officers and the man’s shipmates refused, on sentimental grounds, to interfere with. The chief officer handed in the letter addressed to the captain and the officers. The interpretation was as follows:—“What I have done seems awful. lam sorry to give everybody so much trouble. I have no right to live any longer. You know why I did not kill myself before I was a prisoner. ] would not have caused so much bother. I am very, very sorry, but T deserve my fate. Please do the best you can with my dead body. I beg of you to do the best you can for my ta’ife and child. My wife tried to stop me from going to sea ; she foresaw my fate. If possible, please send my body home. I am worrying very much* at heart about my wife and child at home. Tt is true that 1 killed iYenome,”