Serious Accident.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 237, 3 September 1884, Page 2

Serious Accident.

A serious accident occurred on Monday morning (says the Wangunui Herald) through a little boy belonging to Mr John FleetwooJ getting possession of a loaded revolver which, we believe he took from a box to which it was not supposed he could gain acces?. Having possessed himself of the pistol, it was a very short time until he had fired off one of the chambers, and we regret to say with serious consequences to an elder sister, through whose thigh the bullet penetrated, first smashing oue of her fingers. Mr Fleetwood was, unfortunately, from home, and Mrs Fleetwood had to go some distance and secure the held of a neighbor, who caught and harnessed a horse as quickly as possible, and the child was at once driven into town by its mother, to obtain immediate medical aid. The wounds are severe, but it is not thought that any serious consequences will supervene. How the boy managed to open the box and get possession of the loaded pistol, can only be conjectured, but his having 1 done so adds another to the long list of reasons why loaded fire* arras ought not to be left where children can by any accident get at them.