DOGGED DEFENDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 232, 5 October 1904, Page 3

DOGGED DEFENDERS.

BRAVE WORK BY PORT ARTHUR VOLUNTEERS. RUSSIAN CRUISER ESCAPES. LONDON, Oct 3. General Stoessel has thanked the] garrison for repulsing assaults from the 19th to the 22nd, especially commending the voluntters undei Captain Sychafl and Lieutenant lio gorsky, for heroically capturing : high hill fort. It is reported that the cruiser Ha yan has escaped from Port Arlhih and refugeed at Shanghai. Anot'ver Russian steamer sank while clearing the mines at Poll Arthur. AN AWFUL STRUGGLE. WOMEN AND CHILDREN LEAVING THE TOWN. (Received Oct. 5, 0.51 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 4. Terrific shelling on the 19th ult. destroyed the redoubts protecting the waterworks, and the garrison withdrew to the main The assaults on the high hill which was captured on, the 22nd were preceded in each case by bombardment, wuich began on the 19th. The Japanese determination fo capture the position amounted to -fanaticism, and their efiorts were maintained four days without ceasing. The Russian estimate of Japanese casualties is ten thousand.

At one stage a battalion, while retreating through a valley, was exposed to Russian shrapnel, and almost annihilated.

A field gun and two machine guns were ultimately mounted on a high hill, behind a hastily constructed barrier, but the tenure was insecure owing to the fortress fire. Volunteers, provided with hand grenades, stormed the position, and Lieutenant l'ogorsky's charging turned the tide. A whole battalion was killed in the trenches, and another detachment driven, into the entanglements where Captain Sychaft was waiting, and completed the rout. The slopes of the higa hill were littered with mangled corpses. Chinese buried 300 Japanese anil 200 Russians in one trench.

The water supply is now cut oil' except that for fcne nurses'.

All the women and children., and many Chinese, have been ordered tu quit the town, with a view of husbanding the food and the water from a few springs inside the town. Thirty donkeys are slaughtered daily, their flesh selling at five shillings per pound. Eggs realise lOd each.