BOY KILLED BY MASTIFFS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3416, 6 January 1912, Page 3

BOY KILLED BY MASTIFFS.

TORN TO DEATH WHILE SEEKING A PLACE.

With the intention, of sleeping in the yard of a marine store at Middlesbrough, Harry Hargreaves, fourteen, climbed over the wall on a recent Sunday night, and was worried to death by four mastiffs kept as watch dogs. The terrible story wars- told at the inquest. when the boy’s father said Ins son had always been a wanderer, but was riot mentally deficient. He was a skilled artisan, and had no reason for leaving home last June- On Sunday week he heard his son was in the distreit. hut did not see him. When he had been away on these wanderings he would not mi his return give any account of his doings. That had been the ease since he wits twelve years old. The medical explanation was that he laid a shock when a- child. Mrs Celia Guy, of Craggs street, Middlesbrough, who heard screaming from Mr McKay’s marine store yard at midnight on the Sunday in question, said she ran over the road to the big doors which gave entrance to the yard, and lienrd further cries and shouts for help. She did not hear anything of the dogs. She screamed, and some neighbours went for the policeAn ate nipt was then made to open the door, but this was unsuccessful. When the police arrived and the doors were with difficulty forced open, she saw a naked body lying on the ground, with the dogs standing over it.

An attempt wae then made to open fourteen f°et high, hut there was a wall on the railway side which was much lower, rie procured an axe, and burst the dear open. He then saw a body about three yards from the gate, lying on its hack.’with two mastiff dogs on the right side and one- on the left. The dogs had stripped the clothing off the body. Hargreaves’s scalp had been pulled off, and traces of blood indicated the violent nature of the struggle which had taken place between deceased and the beasts. It was assumed that Hargreaves Jiao gone into the yard to (sleep, and that the dogs discovered .him. The jiirv returned a verdict cf “Death by misadventure.”