Shooting Fatality.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 471, 24 June 1890, Page 3

Shooting Fatality.

Sydney, June 10. At Bourke last Thursday a terrible shooting fatality occurred, by whioh one youth was shot dead aud another sersously injured so that he died subsequently. Three lads named Ernest Mayne (14 years), Albert Fulton (11 years), and Frederick Hallowes (12 years) intended to go shooting up the river in a boat. Fulton had lent an old rifle to a resident named John Hiqdle on the previous day, and the three hoys went to his flace fop the weapon Hallowes and Fulton eft Hindle to purchase ammunition, and Mayne remained. He took up the weapon and asked Hindle if it were loaded. He said he had cleaned it, and Mayne then snapped a cap on the rifle. When the other lads returned, the three left to go to the Billaboug, where the boat was moored, Mayne carried the rifle, and thought he would again try if it were loaded. He stopped and placed another cap on the nipple, By the time he reached the bank of the river his oompanions had got into the boat. Mayne then pulled the trigger and the rifle exploded, The contents struck both Hallowes and Fulton, knocking them both into the river. Hindle, who came upon the scene when he heard the report, and another man named George Robinson, who was near at hand, jumped into the boat and succeeded in pulling Fulton out. The other lad sank. Fulton was terribly mangled by the shot in the left side, and he was immediately taken to Dr. Samuelson’s Hospital. Hallowes’ body wax pat recovered until some time after, when a young man named Joseph Adolph dived in 19ft of water and succeeded in recovering it. Some of the shot had pierced the lad’s forehead, and, entering the brain, death had almost instantly resulted, Mayne afterwards gave himself up to the police. At the inquest a verdict of “ Accidental death ’’ was returned.