Inquest. — An inquest was held in Johnson’s Bridge Hotel, Waipori, on Monday, before W. L. Simpson, Esq., coroner, on the body of Margaret Johnson, aged twenty months, daughter of Mr John Johnson, who met her death by drowning. From the evidence it seems that she, along with other children, were amusing themselves by throwing stones into the Waipori river, near to Wright’s slaughter yard. The child was in the act of throwing a very large stone into the river, and, overbalancing herself, fell into the river after it. There was a steep bank at the place where she fell in, so that the other children could not help the poor little thing, and she was carried slowly down the river, followed by a little boy aged six years called Smith. When about 50 yards from the spot where the child fell in, the the little boy managed to catch hold of her clothes and pulled her out, but life was extinct. The jury returned a verdict of ‘‘Accidentally drowned,” but wished it expressed that the boy Smith displayed great courage and presence of mind in pulling the deceased out of water. -Evening Star, 17/9/1870.
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