RIOT IN MELBOURNE.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 August 1919, Page 9

RIOT IN MELBOURNE.

AFFRAY AT BARRACKS. ATTEMPT TO REACH ARMOR*. Further details of rioting in Melbourne on Sunday, July 20, during the peace colebration period, cume to hand by mail yesterday. The riots occurred in the evening, when between (10 and 70 soldiers and naval men, the majority in uniform, and bearing naval ensigns, marched along St- Kilda Road and endeavored to break through a cordon of military sentries posted at the gates leading into the courtyard at the side of Victoria Barracks. A discharged soldier was killed, and, in addition to several men being arrested, a sailor was charged with having attempted to shoot a sentry.

The grievance under which the men were laboring is somewhat obscure, but after having expressed their intention of rushing the armory connected with the barracks, there were wild scenes, and shots were exchanged A short time afterwards two discharged soldiers arrivod at tho Base Hospital in a motor-ear, bringing with them a third, James O'Connor, a discharged soldier, who was in a serious condition, with a bullet about 2in below the heart. Subsequently he was removed to the Caulfield Military Hospital, where he died. It is believed that a revolver fired by a member of the crowd struck this man.

It was about eight o'clock when a telephone message was received at the St. Kilda Road police station from the Victoria Barracks indicating that a disturbance was brewing. A few minutes later the force of solßers and sailors came into sight, matching in straggling order along the motor speedway. The crowd halted in front of the gates of the barracks, and, to the accompaniment of rounds of cheers and the waving oi naval ensigns, one of the ringleaders, wearing military uniform, advanced towards one of the sentries. "We are going to get into the armory," he shouted, the threat being greeted with more cheers. Warning had been received of the impending attack, and the guard had been reinforced. CROWD ATTACKS SENTRIES. \ The sentries, in the face of the threatening crowd stood their ground unflinchingly. A soldier who had been conspicuous as a spokesman of tho crowd in explaining their mission to the barracks made an endeavor to pass through the gates- He was challenged by one of the sentries.", and as the jostling crowd closed in a man in naval uniform attempted to wrest the rifle from the hands uf the sentry. The sentry, by a -swift movement, reversed the butt, of his rifle, and brought it witli some force under the Jaws of his assailant, felling him to the ground. With the excited rioters surging about him, the sentry broke free, and fired a shot into tho air. This incensed Ihe unruly spirits, and one man in the crowd replied with a shot from a revolver, but it went wide.

After the sentry's warning shot those in the 'forefront hung back for a moment, but another soldier was seen to advance with a revolver towards the guards. A military policeman pounced upon him, and in a lively struggle tlie weapon clattered to the groiad. A revolver picked up during the affray by an officer was found to contain a dented cartridge, showing that the trigger had been pressed, but it had jammed. REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE. _ Constables Ahalo and McWhitlock, from the St. Kilda Road station, were the first police to arrive on the scene, and no sooner had they arrived than a squad of mounted troopers who had been held in readiness at the depot at the rear of the barracks-, came giilloping up Wadey Street and into St. Kilda Road. They immediately dashed in among the crowd, and soldiers and sailors scattered in all directions. Probably with the object of preventing the confiscation by the police of the flags they had been carrying, 15 or 20 men hurried acrosß into tite domain by way of the gate near the Government House entrance. Two foot constables, who were reinforced brothers, pursncd them, but. on entering the dark domain none of the fugitives was to be. seen. Unprovided with torches, the constables very pluckily commenced to probe the clumps of shrubbery with their batons. It was not long before this mode of searcli revealed iullv a dozen men, sailors and soldiers, hiding under bushes, and lying fiat on their stomachs in the soft earth inside the rockery. Crawling on their hands and knees, Constables Ahale and MeWhitlock drove many of the pursued from their hiding places with their batons. Some of them escaped. For ha'f-an-hour the hide-and-seek tactips went on, both the fugitives and the police being torn by brambles and cactus bushes. Eventually the police emerged with prisoners.

While the police were engaged in driving these men out of the gardens, a number of members of the guard gave assistance, and eventually order was restored.