THE TEMUKA SENSATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3871, 28 July 1891, Page 2

THE TEMUKA SENSATION.

Further Partioulars.

How the present proceedings came about reads like the plot of a romance, and affords another instance of " truth stranger than fiction." When Mr Hayhurst lay on his death bed he requested his nurse (Mrs Copestake), an intimate friend of the family, to write to " Mrs Hayhurst" in England, telling her he bad missed the boat through his illness, but he would go Home by the next one. The nurse asked who this Mrs Hayhurst was, but was given an evasive answer. After Mr Hayhurst's death a letter was received by Mrs Copestake signed " Ethel Hayhurst" ; but it contained nothing to show that the writer claimed a closj relationship. Other letters passed, and tha next situation in the drama was the appearance in Temuka of a lady with two children who claimed to be the legal wife of the deceased owner of Greenhayes. After a time it was reported than she had compromised her claim for a large sum of money, and the comparatively mild sensation her appearance and pretentions had created died away. It appears, however, that the lady who thus surprisingly came upon the scene has not been idle, but has accumulated a pile of statements concerning the circumstances of Mr Hayhurst's death, on which was obtained the Colonial Secretary's order for an exhumation and inquest. , . . If the result of the

inquest justifies the proceedings, there will be a great deal more beard of the inacter; if not, a verdict of "death from natural causes" will relegate the matter into oblivion. There is a widespread regret that these proceedings should have been thought necessary, as the family have been always h'ghly respected.—'Timaru Herald.'