THE TOTTENHAM OUTRAGE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9390, 9 March 1909, Page 3

THE TOTTENHAM OUTRAGE.

Details of the Tottenham outrage show it to have been an even more extraordinary and desperate affair than the cables indicated. The coldblooded cruelty and amazing audacity of it were new to London’s annals of crime. . Between nine and ten in the morning a boy employed at Schurmann’s rubber works at Tottenham alighted from a motorcar, at the entrance to the premises, with a bag containing £BO, for .the payment of -wages. Jacob "and Hefeld, the two Polish Jbad been loitering about for some little time. One of them rushed at the boy and upset him, while the other grabbed the bag. The chauffeur took a flying leap from the car, and he and one of the other men and the boy rolled together on the roadway, while the second Pole flrew a revolver and fired twice at the struggling chauffeur. The shots at tracted immediate attention, and Jacob and Hefeld fled, clearing a way as they ran by brandishing their revolvers. The locality is a congested one, and constables, employees of the works, and others, were quickly on the robbers’ track. The chauffeur sprang to his seat, •and with a constable and r a member of the firm, gdasbed off in pursuit. But for some time the pursued held all the trumps. English police do not carry revolvers, and hundreds of houses might be searched in vain for such weapons. The desperadoes had plenty ammunition, were first-rate shots, and were without scruple in using their weapons. They turned and with great deliberation fired at the occupants of the car. 'The first shot missed; the second broke the wind screen and grazed the chauffeur’s > neck; the third pierded the radiator, and silenoed’the engine. Constable Mewman ? jumped out, and attempted Vo dolose, but was hit in the legs at once. Taught a lesson, the small army ,of pursuers were more cautious. Constable 'Tyler attempted to head off the desperadoes, but they waited until he was close to them, and then, with terrible precision, shot him dead in the throat.’and head. A little further on they re-filled their weapons and fired again to check the crowd. A boy was shot dead. The next brought down another policeman and another'boy, shot in the legs. By this time police with revolvers had joined in the pursuit, which after a while reached open country. A woman came to the door of a cottage, and one of the hunted men, who bad lost his cap, made a snatch at her head-covering. She put up her hand in self-defence, and the brute pulled his trigger in her face. Fortunately the cartridge chamber was empty. A rest was taken at a bridge, from which they fired a number of shots, and then they continued their flight across country until they came to a tramcar. The glass in front of the driver was shivered by bullets, and the driver bolted to the top of the car. The /conductor was ordered, with a revolver at his head, to take the driver’s place, [and while one man made the conductor drive,\ the other stoodgat the rear of the car and shot at the pursuers. They left the car, thinking they were coming to a police station,' shot a milkman three times, and tried to escape in his cart. Soon after they separated, and the end was not long in coming. Hefeld was brought to bay at a high fence. He faced his pursuers, fired all his cartridges but one at them, and shot himself, but not fatally, in the head. Jacob took refuge in a cottage. The police three times called upon him to surrender, but there was no response. Two shots , sent at him through the ooor had no effect. Then the [door was seen to open, and Jacob exposed part of his body in taking deliberate aim at his pursuers. But Constable Eagles was too quick for him. A bullet from a police revolver struck him in the head,, and he was dead before the constable reached him. The chase lasted for over fiv3 miles, and the number of killed and injured must have run into double figures.