Wilson, Robert

A Bright Life Suddenly Terminated.
The cosy home of Mr. James Wilson, foreman of the glove leather tannery of W. H. Storey & Son, on Main Street, has been the place of deep mourning this week, the sudden death by accident of the eldest son being the cause of the keenest sorrow on the part of every member of the family. On Monday morning about 7.30, as Robert Wilson, the sixteen-year-old lad referred to, was going about his work in the tannery, he was in the act of stepping over an unprotected shafting to reach a belt he intended to lace, when his leather apron was caught by the revolving shaft and in an instant he was being whirled to his death, his poor form being knocked against the floor and adjacent partition with every revolution of the shaft until a fellow-workman had the engine stopped. When the poor fellow was reached it was found that his clothing, boots and stockings had been entirely torn off; his legs, arms and thighs fractured; the left arm and ear torn off; and subsequent examaintions showed a fracture at the base of the skull. As his heart-broken father and other employees stood for a moment looking upon the mangled body attached to the shaft, thinking life was extinct, the poor fellow piteously exclaimed, upon seeing his father: "Take me off father, I'm not dead." Tenderly the bruised form was removed from the scene of the awful accident, and physicians called in. He survived for about an hour in full consciousness and talked freely with his aunt, Mrs. John Stephenson, and was able to kiss his parents, brothers and sisters goodbye and converse intelligibly with his pastor ere the end came. The event has cast deepest gloom over the community and sincerest sympathy is extended the keenly bereft family in this heavy blow. The funeral yesterday afternoon was one of the largest here for some time.