TRAGIC DEATH

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 10 December 1912, Page 5

TRAGIC DEATH

OF A LONELY SETTLER

An inquest was held before the District Coroner, Mr J. T. M. Hor.'isby, yesterday afternoon at the fa nil of the late Robert Dickson, whose body was found in the deceased- man'i whare on Sunday night last. Evidence was given which showed that lately deceased had been in ill-health, and despondent. He was seen aliv;j a week ago by Mr Rose, his ' nearest neighbour, who waved to him as he 'passed along the upper road. Dickson wag missed from his usual place on his farm, and Mr Rose made inquiries which resulted in one of his employees breaking into Dickson's whare there to discover the old man shot dead,' and the guri lying alongside his l>ody. Dr Archer Hoskings described the nature of the wound (a large one), the bullet having gone right through the heart, fired as it was at such, close quarters. Deceased had sot the gun off by means of a short r-litl, which he pressed against the trfappr of thrt gun—an old muzzle-loading one. Tlio. Coroner said it was a clear cafe of a lonely man becoming melancholy, ""d i!- a, fit of jnsanitv. induced bv loneliness and. ill-health, the artful deed was committed. The verdict would be "Suicide while temporarily insane."