“DEATH IS FAIREST”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 195, 7 November 1927, Page 13

“DEATH IS FAIREST”

STARVING MAN’S LETTER RETURNED SOLDIER’S DEATH (From Our Own Correspondent) TE KUITI, To-day. The adjourned inquest on the remains of an unknown man which were discovered near Kopaki on October 3, was resumed before the district coroner, Mr. R. M. Somerville, at Te Kuiti on Friday. Since the adjourned inquest the police have made every effort to establish the identity of the dead man, hut without result. During the inquest the following unsigned letter, which was found in a whare near the scene of the tragedy, was read. The message was written on the margins of a School Journal. 24/12/1926. “I simply can't get much further; my stomach is paining for food and my back aches awful. Imagine a battle-scarred hero starving to death in the country he was once so proud to tight for . . . three days without a bite ... a whole week on half a loaf and cold water . . . Death is my best friend —he will relieve me of all pain. ... In your happy hours think of the death I died: all alone. No wonder wounded soldiers who are pensionless and are not able to work as they could before the war, commit suicide when they are without friends or money. Death is the fairest after all. . . . Good-bye all; death will soon claim another victim through the merciless action of War Pensions Board. An! you ungrateful people of ‘God’s Own.’ A dose of strychnine would end it more suddenly, but I prefer to die as I once lived, honourable. Fare thee well, N.Z.; I take my last walk now; I am as weak as water. . . The message ended with: “Give full publicity.” „ Sergeant Fearnley stated that the letter had been found by a district resident, who regarded is as a joke, but on the discovery of the body, he had handed the letter over to him. There was no direct evidence to associate the letter with deceased, but there was a possibility of its having been written, by him. If so, the conclusion of the police was that the writer was of unsound mind. The beaten track between deceased's camp and the river convinced them that he had been there for some weeks. Police inquiries in the district had elicited the fact that there had been a number of tramps in the locality at the time of the unknown man's death, and one of these had been described as being very eccentric, and he may have been the deceased, though there was no direct evidence on the matter. Evidence of the finding of the body was given by J. Williams, son of Albert George Williams, farmer, of Aratoro, and also by the latter. Constable Farrell - deposed to having visited the scene of the tragedj' and interred the remains, which were in an advanced state of decomposition. The Returned Soldiers’ Association has been approached, and has arranged to erect a cross over the grave of the unknown man. while the residents of the distinct purpose erecting a fence around the spot.