BOMB IN BEDROOM.

Taihape Daily Times, 4 January 1919, Page 6

BOMB IN BEDROOM.

; SYDNEY SENSATION.MUCH DAMAGE DONE. LUCKY ESCAPE FEOM DEATH. At a house in Eichards Avenue, Surrey Hills, Sydney, shortly before three o'clock on the morning of December 19, a gelignite bomb was exploded with terrific force, but without resulting in loss of life. The bomb was thrown into a front room, which is used as a bedroom. Fortunately it was not occupied at the time. No fire acompanied the explosion and nothing was even scorched by the fuse. But not a single article in the room was left untouched and if the bomb had been thrown a little further it would have blown out the wall which divides the bedroom from th. dining-room and wrecked the latter room as well. The splinters from the bomb flew in all directions, smashing the pictures and mirrors in the wardrobe and dressing tables, and wrecKing every article of furniture to such an extent as to suggest that the work had been done with an axe. The wardrobe especially received . great deal of the force of the explo sion. It was smashed to match-wood. Even the drawers of the dressingtable were torn out and the clothes strewn and scattered all over the place. The lids of jewel cases on the table were lifted and thrown to the other end of the room. PLUGS OF GELIGNITE.

It is believed that the perpetrator of the outrage used a bomb comparing about half, a dozen plugs o gelignite. The fuse cf it —about Ci long —w as found on the veranda 1 But as the window had been left un locked when the occupants retired t bed, all he had to do was to lift ii and ithrow Hjic bomb in on -to the bed. This is evidently -what he did, for the bed itself , and the clothes an t Sapok mattress on it, were smashed and torn. The occupants of the house -were Mr and Mrs. Eyan and their baby girl of 16 months, Mary and Nellie . Burns, aged 17 and 15 respectively and a boy of seven years, the son of Mr. Bartlett. All these retired to bed after ten o’clock, Mr and Mrs. Eyan, w T ith their baby, occupying the front balcony room. The others slept in the back bedrooms. At about 2.50 a.m., however, they were all awakened by a terrific explosion, which shook the house from top to bottom, Mr and Mrs Eyan, leaping out of bed, went out on to the balcony. They saw nobody but the front gate was open, big pieces of the window frames were lying on the verandah, and. broken glass was strewn on the verandah and footpath. They then went down stairs, and entering the front room, which was occupied by Mrs. Bartlett when she stayed at the house, they found the whole place wrecked beyond recognition. ALAEM IN NEIGHB’OUEHOOD It is remarkable that the whole house was not wrecked, and that the occupants of the place are even alive. As it is, they suffered greatly from shock. Mr and Mrs Eyan had a narrow escape from being bit by the glass of the windows of their room, which were smashed as a result of the bomb. The house shook, Mrs. Eyan stated, as if it were being lifted from its foundations, and the- articles on a

which had been sot for Mi's supper were knocked off and I yards Away. The gas jdt, \ had ben left glimmering in the t, was blow r n out, all the clocks in house stopped on the very -minute explosion , occurred and some of pictures in the back rooms were iken, and fell. The whole neighbourhood was Vown into a state of frantic excitc--mt. The explosion was so loud that wias heard from the other side, of ' Agricultural Ground (nearly a away), and people got out of bed and many walked across to the scene. ‘ Several women in the houses opposite suffered from hysterics, and the whole locality was filled with the shrieks and cries of women and chib dren. .. . Some years ago a bomb was thrown info a house in Surrey Hills, but not in the same localitja In that easqi practically the whole house was blowrn up, although the explosion itself-wa§ not so loud. ' -