ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES, ETC.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1169, 24 April 1884, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES, ETC.

A blacksmith named J. Decamps was found dead in the cleaning shed of the locomotive department, Napier, yesterday morning. He had only been engaged the day before. A young man named Prescott, in the employ of Rennie and Dornwell, butchers, Dunedin, committed suicide yesterday morning by hanging himself. Monetary difficulties are supposed to be the cause. He was only recently married. During the performance of the play • Drink,’ at the Dunedin Princess Theatre, a rope bridge, on which were Miss Carrie Nelson, Miss St. John, Miss Rosamond and Mrs Knight, gave way, and they were precipitated into the cellar, a distance of 20ft. Miss Nelson had her back badly injured, and the others were hurt more or less severely. Th* accident terminated the performance. A man named Walter Robertson, journeyman baker, met his dsath under mysterious circumstances on the Ngahauranga line, Wellington, on Thursday. He had been into the town with a horse and cart and started on his return journey. His body was found shortly after four in the afternoon in a creek some 25ft below the road. It had a severe cut on the bead, and it is conjectured that he was jerked out of the cart and fell down the embankment. He leaves a wife and three children.

At the Wellington Magistrate's Court on Friday afternoon Thomas J. Glew, a publican, was committed for trial for perjury. The offence is alleged to have been committed in a civil case in the Resident Magistrate’s Court, by the accused swearing that his name was not signed by bim and that it was a forgery. Bail was allowed, himself in £IOO and two sureties of £SO each.

On Friday a mah named Peter McCormick was jerked of the platform of a railway carriage as the train was nearing Port Chalmers from the North. He landed on his head, but was only slightly cut, and a policeman who went in search of him met him walking in. He was perfectly sober and states that he was jerked off while looking at the shipping. News has reached Dunedin of the death by drowning of Mr William Tennen, who has been a commercial traveller in the country districts of Otago for a very long time. He was thrown out of his buggy into a sludge channel neiF Ophir, in Vincent County. He leaves a grown up family. On Friday afternoon at Ashley Mr R. Boyce, aged nearly 70 years, was offering for sale a young horse, and while causing the animal to draw a log one ot the chains slipped, Mr Boyce stopped to adjust it, when the animal kicked him on the head, fracturing his skull, from which the brain protruded. The unfortunate man never regained consciousness, though he lingered for sis hours.

A son of Mr Spackman, a baker at Featherslono, Wellington, aged four, fell down a well on Saturday and was drowned. A young Bank clerk in Wellington was on Monday horsesvhipped by Mr Musgrove, manager of the Opera Troupe, for sending an insulting letter to one of the lady members of the troupe.

On Sunday, at Auckland, the police found the body of Edwin Welcome, a commission agent, floating in the harbor. He arrived from Taranaki a week ago, and had been drinking heavily. He was last seen on Saturday night. The deceased was said to possess considerable property in New Plymouth. Deceased was subject to epileptic fits, but from an examination of the body death appeared to have been caused by violence. Wm. Brennen, a well-known jockey, has been run over by a timber waggon at Kamo, Auckland, and killed. Henry Goodward, who was sentenced at Auckland to five years and two floggings for rape, received the first instalment on Monday morning. The flogging was very severe, but he did not utter a cry. Two warders were the flagellants, and it is stated that one of the gaol officials resigned rather than inflict the flogging. At the R.M. Court, Christchurch, on Tuesday last, a man named Francis John Orrnondy, was committed for trial for stealing goods of the aggregate value of £2OO from his employers. It appeared that his employers, the Messrs Harris, are Jews and their premises are closed on Saturdays, and Ormondy was in the habit of going to the shop on that day, and appropriating any small articles he could lay his hands upon. Another man Marks 8011, was committed for trial on a charge of receiving the stolen property.