LUNATIC’S ADVENTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1921, Page 5

LUNATIC’S ADVENTURE.

THREE WEEKS AT LIBERTY. SLEEPING IN THE SNOW. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Invercargill, Last Night. The recapture in the Lakes district of an escapee from the Seacliff Mental Hospital, reveals an extraordinary feat of endurance. Three weeks ago a man reched Arrowtown and told a resident that he intended to go rabbiting and that he would shoot a few men with a revolver.

The police were informed and Constable Dunlop, of Queenstown, set out in pursuit of the who had meanwhile disappeared. He was tracked to S. Kippers, where the traces were lost. Later the constable was informed that a man had been seen near Earnslaw and on Sunday he surprised him in a hut. The lunatic, who submitted quietly, had a butcher’s knife and three rifle cartridges in hie possession, but no revolver or gun. He had spent the whole time in the mountainous country, sleeping in the snow and eating raw rabbit and goat’s flesh. Bare-footed he crossed Mt. Orman, nearly 8600 feet high,, and except for lacerated hands and feet and extreme hunger he was none the worse. He was returned to Seacliff to-day.