YOUNG LAD DROWNED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 555, 7 January 1929, Page 14

YOUNG LAD DROWNED

CAPSIZE IN HARBOUR ROW-BOAT OVERTURNS SMALL BROTHER RESCUED When two brothers, Hunter James Mathieson and Eric Mathieson, aged 15 and nine respectively were out in a small flat-bottomed boat in Hobson Bay on Saturday afternoon, the boat capsized and the elder boy was drowned. T* l ® boys left their home at 31 Takutat street, ParriTll, at about half-past one to go for a row in their boat, being e< l bs ' thelr mother not to go out of the basin formed by the sewer skirting the waterfront. Prom then until about three o’clock no one knows how they spent their time. A bout three o'clock, three young men Messrs. E. C. Hay, J. B. Hay and H. P Connelly, who were in a boat a little beyond the sewer, heard cries for help. They rowed at full speed towards the sounds and discovered the boys’ boat floating upside down with Eric in the water near it. They took the boy* ashore but he was almost unconscious so that it was some time before he could tell them about his brother. They rowed out again to where they had found the boat but there was no sign of the elder boy'. They then went to the police and they, with the help of launch owners, dragged the bay' until about 5.30. They did not find the body, but at low tide, about an hour later, it was found bv Mr. J. L. Brett, floating in the shallow water near the shore. Xeither of the boys was able to swim. Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson recently arrived from Christchurch. Evidence of indentification was taken at an inquest opened before the district coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., and the inquest was then adjourned.