TRAPPED BY GERMANS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2097, 4 June 1907, Page 1

TRAPPED BY GERMANS

BRUTAL ATTACKS ON ENGLISH DOCKERS.

Tho English laborers, who some time ago wont to Hamburg to take thu place of tho Gorman dock laborers on strike there, must be heartily sorry they ever embarked on such an enterprise. The reception at the German port, as was only to bo expected under the circumstances, was quito the reverse of cordial. The other day, about 150 Englishmen disregarded the advice of their employer’s with regard to Easter, and spent the time on land. .At tho Hamburg side of the port they came across the strike pickets, who invited them to a neighboring restaurant, on the Wilhelmsburg. This restaurant is not in Hamburg, but oil Prussian territory, and tho Hamburg po-

•lice near the frontier- warned the Englishmen that their lives were not safe at Wiihelmsburg, and about 50 took the warning seriously and remained in Hamburg. About 100 allowed themselves to be conducted on the promise of free drinks over the narrow bridge leading to Wilhelmsburg, where they dispersed to several restaurants close together. They were, however, now caught in a trap, and in a few minutes hundreds of half-grown youths rushed from house to house shouting “The English are here.” In an incredibly short space of time upwards of 100'. men collected round the restaurants, and the business for which they had assembled began. A group of striking dockers started the fray by ■picking a quarrel with the Englishmen inside the restaurant. The unfortunate Englishmen, who were many times outnumbered, were severely handled and pitched neck and crop out of the building into the equally hostile crowd awaiting them outside. Hero the English laborers, who were mostly young under-grown men, had no alternative but to run the gauntlet,and a few of them managed to escape over the narrow bridge. This was, however, soon occupied by the strikers, who received the fleeing Englishmen and beat them unmercifully with life preservers, with laths studded with nails, and bricks. To save themselves many Englishmen leaped into the water, and those -who did not leap were horribly beaten, and then pushed in. Even women assisted in tlio onslaught; in some cases they beat the heads of the Englishmen in the water and hammered at their lingers as they clung to the quay-side, and in another case a woman belabored with a brick the head of an Englishman who had been knocked to the ground. Boys also amused themselves by throwing stones at the English laborers struggling in the Elbe. One Englishman who could not swim

was kicked in the face by a striker as' he was trying to climb out of the water. He was saved later by a Customs official. Some others of the Englishmen wore attacked in the open street as they came out of the restaurants, thrown to the ground, and there kicked in the --face and body, and pummelled with fists. With blood streaming from them they finally crawled, over tlio frontier into the protection of the Hamburg police. Some other Englishmen lost their way, and were chased over fields under water owing to the floods, and finally driven, into the river. Afterwards, groups of Englishmen were seen near the waterside in dilapidated clothing, witnessing to what they had gone through, hirst aid was given to 73 Englkjinien in sheds on the quay, and most of them conveyed later to the hospital, while some three or four dozen more had black oyes, and faces covered with blood, but were able to walk about.