FATAL PONTOON FIGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 292, 2 May 1913, Page 8

FATAL PONTOON FIGHT.

INQUEST CONCLUDED. Per Press Association. Auckland,. Thursday. The inquest into the death of Manuel Santos, who died on April 18 after a fight with ITarold Gladstone Brown on the Harbor Board's pile-driving pontoon, concluded to-day. Aousta Ojala, foreman in the board's employ, described the fight and deceased's fall into the water. He said that Brown sepmod afterwards to be sorry for what he had done.

David Penman, engineer, said that he did not see the first blow struck. 'The combatants were separated by the man who was working the pile-driver, and each man went back to his work. A few minutes later Santos again went up to Brown and said something to him, and Brown retaliated bv pushing- Santos, who fell into the harbor. Brown merely pushed him—he did not strike him. Subsequently, when deceased was in the en-gine-room, witness heard him cry out: "Oh, my heart!" The coroner briefly addressed the jury, and stated that the evidence absolutely reduced the case to one of manslaughter. The medical evidence was of the lushest importance. The doctor had ascribed death to syncope, on blows on the head and the immersion, and the evidence showed that blows had been struck by Brown. The jury, he thought, had no optioti but. to bring in a Verdict,of rijanslaughter. ' ;: vThejury returned a verdict that death Va'S 'due 'to Isyncope, following on blows on the head strupje by Harold Gladstone Brown,' arid tlidt\ Brown- thereby feloniously caused the death of Manuel Santos'. '