SCARE AT GERALDINE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2274, 31 October 1891, Page 2

SCARE AT GERALDINE.

Some individual with Jack-the-Ripper proclivities about him has taken up his abode in the Geraldine bush for the last few days, according to the accounts of several people who swear to have seen him. Constable Willoughby being informed concerning him, weht iip on Thursday to the bush with his rifle", Imt could see no signs of him. Our representative yesterday waited on several poeple in the neighbourhood of the bush, and they gave the following accounts of him. Mrs Trumper said: —To-day jd?riday) week, a man stopped on the road aiid spoke to a young man named Buzen, and asked him where he could get some, water. The young man told him he could get some from his mother. He did not go to see his mother; but called at my house with a billy for some hot water, My little girl went to the door and gave him some. A short time after my little girl was going to school, and when she had got a few hundred yards on the road, he asked her the way to Pleasant Valley. He then pulled but a whitehandled knife which looked something like a carving knife, and told her he was going to cut all the little d——s hfeads off who came from the school in the evening, and if she went back home again along the road he would kill her with

his knife. She said “ I’ll go through the paddock to my father, and get the police for you,” and as she attempted to draw back he moved towards her. He then stretched himself out oh the tussocks and took out a pipe and a handkerchief; he wrapped the pipe up and threw it at her, and commenced swearing as she ran away. On Tuesday evening, about six o’clock,-the children were down in the bush after they came. home from school: the girls were gathering ferns, and the boys were birdnesting. A little boy, about nine years of age, was up a tree, when the others came running to tell him that the man was coming with a knife. The little fellow dropped right off the tree on to his back on the ground through fright, and cried out: “ Murder; the police are coming after you.” A povng man named Broderick, who was in a paddock close by, heard the ■ screamsjr and ran at the man with a pitchfork in his" hand. The man then ran away, and disappeared in the bush, I only saw his back as he left my house. He is a man of medium height. My daughter described • him as being a half-caste, with very thick lips, and wearing a dark blue suit, and a slouched felt hat oh his head. ,

Gur representative met Mr Buzen while the latter was on his way down to escort his children home from school.

Mr Buzen saidl have to go down in’ the morning with my children and my neighbors’ children, and bring them up in', the evening. Yesterday morning I was; taking the children down the hill when we ; saw the man waiting at his usual place in the flax near the Pleasant Valley road, He __ made off when he saw me in the direction oF the bush. I slipped through'a field to meet him, but he got away in thie bush. My wife and Mrs Trumper were present when he ran away. He spoke’to my son when he first came here, and asked him several questions. He asked if there were any men about; and'if there ! whs any place where he' could hide, < and what time the children went to school, and how many went. He is a dark looking fellow, a kind of half-caste, with thick lips. Our representative asked how the man got food, and the. answer was that he was over at Pleasant Valley on Sunday, begging for food. He called at Miss Best’s, at Pleasant Valley, and got some food, and said to her that the people of Geraldine would give him no food. Eeporter: But how do you know he was the same man? '

Miss Best described him exactly as my son, and others who had seen'him described. Yesterday afternoon Constable Willoughby stationed himself with his rifle close to the bush, where the man has been seen to come out at school time, and the school children were allowed to play about the spot to see if it would decoy him out, but up to the time of our report leaving, he had not been captured. To-day a party of men from Geraldine will assist Constable Willonghby in a thorough search of the bush and thereabouts, so that the minds of those people in the neighborhood can be at rest. At present there is great excitement amongst them and they feel very unsafe. j.