A Dastardly Act.

Te Aroha News, Volume XVI, Issue 222033, 6 January 1900, Page 2

A Dastardly Act.

A dastardly act, and one that might have been attended with serious consequences jf not loss of life, was pei’pi trated on Nev? Year’s eve by some ruffianly blackguard or gang of vilianpus curs. A young man crossing the railway bridge in the oarly morning of the Ist inst, had his horse, a restive one, suddenly stick him up, and by snorting, pawing and general restiver ne-s, evinced its objection to proceed, notwithstanding all its rider’s en deavours to make it do so. The young man alighted and began to exanrne into tho cause of this objection to proceed, and found, to his consternation, that the bridge had been barricaded with barbed wire. One wire was stretched low down on the rails, another about the height of a pony’s chest, and the third about the height a man’s breast. It is an easy mat'er to conceive what might have happened had the horse aud rider ruu into this trap, at the least, it would have meant, serious maiming fur man and beast, and probably death to the former. The position of an unfortunate man tangled in wire and mixed up with a struggling, terrified beast on such a place as the railway bridge is .something awful to contemplate. It is^ to be hoped that the proper authorities will take this matter up, aud that the contemptible scoundrel or scoundrels bo properly dealt with.