PER SPECIAL WISE TO "STAR."

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3467, 4 February 1880, Page 2

PER SPECIAL WISE TO "STAR."

(Pbess Association,)

AUCKLAND.

Yesterday.

While a boy named Knox, aged 9 years, was playing at the foot of the cliffs at Freeman's Bay, some mischievous lad, name unknown, rolled a boulder over the hill, which struck him on the head, and the child now lies in an unconscious and critical condition.

As the result of the United Friendly Societies' demonstration on regatta day, there will be £40 divisible to the charitable institutions.

The enquiry into the cause of the accident to the steamship Kotomahana by striking against a rock near the Great Barrier Island, on the Ist of January, 1880, was finished this afternoon, - the following witnesses having been examined, viz., Thomas Underwood, Master Mariner, Thomas Hill, Collector of Customs, Charles Jones, Master Mariner, Henry Worsp, Master Mariner, and Albert James Allom, Justice of the Peace. The judgment of the Court is as follows:— "That no wrongful act or default can be attributed to Captain Underwood in the striking of the s.s. Kotomahana. on a rock, on the Ist day of January last, but at the same time the Court is of opinion that sending such a ship as the Rotomahana on a pleasure excursion with a large number of passengers to a port seldom visited by large ships; and further prescribing a channel not evSn then usually employed, was highly injudicious, and is reprehensible, and in engaging a person as pilot who cannot understand a chart, is blameable. The Court find that the conduct of the master and officers after the accident was praiseworthy, there being no confusion, nor unnecessary alarm on board after the striiking.

Sailed : City of Sydney for 'Frisco at 8.30 p.m.

On the Arawafca arriving Detective Jeffrey arrested a man named Berthold Bodienhamer, alias Bell, on the strength of a description given in a cablegram for stealing a sum of money from Eugene Kourge of Sydney. The man had intended transhipping to the 'Frisco steamer, by which a warrant came down for his arrest. Kourge, the man robbed, is connected with, the German department of the Sydney Exhibition.