BOMB IN BEDROOM.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1919, Page 7

BOMB IN BEDROOM.

N SYDNEY SENSATIO2J. ' /

ESCAPE MOM DEATH.

At a house in Richards Avenue, Surry 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 accompanied the explosion, and nothing was even scorched by the fuse. But not a siugle article in tho 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 the diniitgroom 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 axd.

The s-ardrobe especially received a great deal of the force of the explosion. It was smashed to matchwood. .Even the,drawers of the dressing-table 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 OP GELIGNITE. It is believed that the perpetrator of tho outrage used a bomb comprising about half a dozen plugs of gelignite. The fuse of it—about 6in long—was found on tho verandah. But as the window had been left unlocked when the occupants retired to bed, all he had to do was to lift it and throw the bomb in on to the bed- This is evidently what he did, for the bed itself and the clothes and kapok mattress on it,-were smashed and torn.

The occupants of the house were Mr. and Mrs Ryan and their baby girl of 16 months, Mary and Nellie Burns, aged 17 and 15 years respectively, and a Soy of seven years, the son of Mrs tßartlett. All these retired to bed alter ten o'clock, Mr and Mrs Ryan, with 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 Ryan, leaping out of bed, went out on to the balcony. They saw nobody, but the front gate was open, big piece 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 rooia, which was occupied by Mrs Bartlett when she stayed at the house, they found the whole place -wrecked beyond recognition. ALARM IN NEIGHBORHOOD. It is xuiuarkftble that the whole house was not wrecked, and that the occupants ■of the place arc even alive. As it is, thay suffered greatly from shock. Jlr and Mrs 'Byan had a narrow escape from being hit by the glass of the windows of their room, which were smashed as a result of the bomb.

The house shook, Mrs Ryau stated, as if it were being lifted from its foundations, and the articles on a table which had been set for Mr Ryan's supper were knocked off and hurled yards away. The gas jet, which had been left glimmering in the room, was blown, out, all the clocks in the house stopped on the very mimita the explosion occurred, and some of the pictures in the buck rooms were brokc-u, and fell. The whole neighborhood was thrown into a state of frantic excitement. The explosion was so loud that it was heard from the other side or the Agricultural Ground (nearly a mile away), and people got out of bed and many walked across to the scene.

■Several women in the houses opposite suffered from hysterics, snd the whole locality was filled with the shrieks and cries of women and children.

Some years ago a bomb was thrown into a house ill Surry Hills, but not in the same locality In that ease practically the whole liousti was blown up, although th 6 explosion itself was not so loud.' - -