DEATH IN HOT SPRING.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1920, Page 5

DEATH IN HOT SPRING.

EX-SOLDIER'S TERRIBLE END. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Rotorua, Last Night, About seven o'clock on Saturday evening, EdWard King, assistant clerk at the Magistrate's Court, lost his life through accidentally stepping in the dark into a hot hole in the Native reserve at Whakarewarewa. He was visiting some Maori friends, and had just left the house to go to a shop when he disappeared from view. A Maori saw the occurrence, and gave the alarm, but nothing was seen in the hole, which is about thirty-three feet deep, with boiling water ten or tweve feet below the ground. The Maoris worked strenuously to recover the body, and also communicated with the police. Constables , Johnson and Neil went to the scene with ropes and grappling irons, and about ten o'clock the noify was recovered. A Maori leaned into the rising steam, held by the feet by another on the bank, and fastened a rope to the body. The deceased was a returned soldier, about 30 years, and single. His brother, H. E. King, was formerly registrar at the Native Land Court, Rotorua.