SHOOTING DRAMA.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3501, 1 June 1920, Page 3

SHOOTING DRAMA.

A. TRAIN "S RACE \VlTl:I BANDITS. A shooting affray, which bore a close resemblance to :1 scene in a film drania, took place near Orleans recently, when four inspectors attached to the railway station at Les Aubrais surprised a. group of men who were unloading u ttruek eon—tai.ning cloth to the value of 50,000 francs. The robbers on being discovered retreated to their motor car, opening‘ fire -as they went, and killing a station employee who had hurried to the scene. of the robliery. They» rushed off at great speed along the Pzuiis road, but telephone. instructions were immediately sent in all directions, and the banditscwere stopped at Arthenay by a barricade of fal'm'earts 'plaeed across the road. Z\leanwhile the stationrnaster and a number of gendarnies followed in a light engine along the railway in the same direction as the car, which they duickly outdistanced, They left the train at Ar-thenay, and a few minutes later greeted tlie’i'ro't»l'»ers with a salvo of rifle shots from behind the barricade. The leader of the bandits was killed, but one man was arrested, but four others suceeded in escaping. Two of them were surprised while having a meal in an inn. Four gendarines, revolvers in hand, suddenly bul'S't- open up.” One bandit snatched his own pistol out of his poc-hot and opened rapid fire, eoiiiylellirig‘ the gendarmes to take cover behind the tables, which they reversed so as To form an extemporised barricade. Wild firing eontinue<l_. until one bandit was shot (lea'd,"'sld the otlier was wounded and captured. By a strange coincidence the name of the bandit killed is Louis Bonnot, if-calling: meniories of the famous gang "".-"<-h tr3.v.'roriseC Frynee in pre-war‘ days.