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| NSW Railways Staff c1900 (Kiama Library, Flickr cc-by-2.0) |
The following article appeared on page 2 of the Goulburn Herald and Chronicle on 5 January 1880. The original article is available on Trove.
A Canard.- About one o'clock on last Friday afternoon a small boy came rushing through the street, telling everybody he met that Mr. Morphy, the well-known and universally-liked porter at the railway-station, had been thrown from a cart and instantly killed.
The boy had been told to go for the police, and Constable Clifford started with all possible speed for the scene of the reported dire disaster, which was something over a mile from town, The constable called on his way for Mr. Collins to accompany him in case there might be still some hopes of saving the life of the unfortunate man.
The intelligence, like all bad news; spread like wild-fire and in a few minutes nearly the whole male population of the town was pouring across the flat in the rear of Constable Clifford and Mr. Collins, who were straining every nerve to reach the man supposed to dead or dying. When the spot was reached they found an individual (not by any means Mr. Morphy), who had been celebrating his New Year's Day too freely and consequently not being able to maintain his equilibrium had fallen from a cart and received a slight abrasion of the skin on one side of his head.
The crowd returned to town much more slowly than they had run out, and while there was general rejoicing that the first report had turned out false there was general disgust at such a complete sell.
As in all such cases, some one is always found ready, and to all appearances glad, to bear ill-news, so in this case at the very first report some one ran to inform Mrs. Morphy of her husband's death. It would be hard to tell what the consequences of such a sudden shock might have been; but fortunately Mr. Morphy himself met the messenger coming up to his door.
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