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TEN BY.

TENBY CORPORATION.

PEMBROKE.

BOROUGH PETTY SESSIONS. i

PEMBROKE-DOCS.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE FATAL ACCIDENT TO AN UNDERGRADUATE.

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THE FATAL ACCIDENT TO AN UNDER- GRADUATE. A coroner's inquest on the body of Mr James Watson Barne, commoner of Exeter College, whose melancholy death was announced in our last, was held on Friday afternoon at Exeter Col- lege, by Mr F. Symonds, one of the University coroners. Mr A. M. Gordon, commoner of Exeter College, after being warned by the coroner that what he said in evidence might be used against him, was examined He said he went out on Thursday with deceased at a quarter-past two o'clock to the Isis, and proceeded up the Cherwell in a punt as far as the New Bridge, near which they anchored for some time. At about a quarter-past four they turnbd round. He was punting, and gave deceased p t, 11 his poat, containing a pistol, to hold. Deceased asked him where the bullets were, and he told him they were in one of the pockets of his coat. After that they changed places, deceased taking the punt pole, and he sitting down. He did not see if de- ceased had taken one of the bullets out, as his back was turned towards him. He had fired the pistol off before they started back. They had been playing in the boat. He pointed the pistol towards deceased, thinking it was not loaded and it went off. Deceased said the bullet had entered, and he afterwards laid down in the boat, and he (witness) called out to some men on the shore to come to them. He had been accustomed to use a pistol of the kind. After he had struck deceased he threw the pistol away in the river. He could not tell from the appearance of the pistol that it had been loaded. The pistol did not go off from .the jerk of the boat, but he might have pulled the trigger. He had had no dispute with the deceased. The last time he fired the pistol he put it down in the boat. He did not think the deceased had fired the pistol at all. He was certain he did not load it after shooting it off the last time. He had been firing at birds. They had been throwing things at one another just before the accident, and he thought they were talking at the time it occurred. Mr Reginald Black Roche, Queen's College, said r, be. was with some friends in a punt on the Cherwell, about 100 yards above Magdalen Bridge, on the C, 11 afternoon of the accident, when he heard the re- port of a pistol and a cry afterwards. He thought nothing of it at first, but Mr Gordon called to him for his assistance and he jumped on s.hore and was requested by Gordon to fetch a doctor as soon as possible. He fetched Dr Giles. He assisted to carry deceased into Magdalen College. It was 11 Z, about a quarter-past four. Deceased did not say anything to him, but ejaculated My God,' and once or twice said, 11 shall die.' Deceased did not say how the accident happened. He did not see the pistol, but if it was one like that produced he could only say it was a very dangerous article, as there was no guard to the trigger. Dr. Richard Giles said he found Mr Barne lying on his back at the bottom of a punt. Deceased's shirt had been undone, and there was a mark of blood, and a dark wound about the cartilage of the seventh rib, about two inches from the chest bone. Deceased was in a state of collapse, being pulse- less. He but moved his legs and drew them up as if in pain. There was no hoemorrhage. He did not think the ball had passed out. He felt at the hack for it. He was shown a small conical ball similar to that now produced. Deceased was car- ried immediately to the rooms at Magdalen Col- lege and died in a few minutes. He had heard him say I must die,' or I shall die.' It was his opinion that deceased died from the effects of the bullet wound. He thought the bullet must have taken an upward direction. The Coroner addressed the jury on the evidence adduced, and the latter, after a short consultation, found the following verdict:— 'That the death of the deceased, James Watson Barne, was the result of a wound from the acci- dental discharge of a pistol adding the following remonstrance We wish to express our strong disapproval of the prevailing indiscriminate use of saloon pistols by the undergraduate members of the university, and desire to call the attention oi l the authorities of the university and the colleges to this dangerous practice.' z;1 The following statement was then put in by the Rev H. Barne, deceased's guardian :—' The Rev H. Barne, vicar of Farringdon, and uncle of the deceased, desires to express to the coroner and the jury his entire conviction as to the purely acci- dental character of the manner in which deceased had lost his life; and amid the deep grief of him- .self and his family, his true sympathy with Mr Gordon under the very distressing circumstance ot this most sad catastrophe.' w

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