POSTMASTER SHOT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2394, 8 January 1909, Page 12 (Supplement)

POSTMASTER SHOT.

TRAGEDY OF A LUNATIC'S REG- ~ ISTERED LETTER.

An extraordinary tragedy resulted on November 9th in the shooting Mr. Edward M. Morgan, postmaste 1 of New York City, and the suicide oi his assailant. , . , Mr. Morgan, as was Ins daily lice, was escourting his to old daughter to school befoie gom to nerform his duties as chief of tlie post office, when he was accostedby • Eric Maclcay, a lawyer#, cleik, who, without the slightest warning, shot tlie postmaser in the abdomen. He was about to fire a second shot when Mr- Morgan’s daughter stepped heroically in front of her father. Maclcay, in an endeavor to avoid' liurtmg the <nrl aimed at Mr. Morgans head, and the bullet went wild. Ihe assailant then tripped and fell mto the gutter, and while laying there, placed the pistol to his forehead and blew out his brains. Mr. Morgan meanwhile had fallen senseless on the pavement. He was carried to the hospital, where it was found that his wound, though serious, was not necessarily fatal. Ho declared that he had never seen lus assailant before. In Mackay’s pocket was a letter explaining that the postmaster,, “by a quibble of law,” had declined to permit a registered letter to be delivered to him, and that he had taken this means of protesting against the injustice of the postal authorities towards the poorer classes. Maclcay was thirty-five years of ago and was horn in Dublin. "Six years ago he was placed in a lunatic asylum for shooting a man because of a fancied grievance.