ATTACK ON GAOL.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1921, Page 5

ATTACK ON GAOL.

SINN FEIN SENSATION. DASH TO HELP INMATES. BRISK FIGHT FOLLOWS. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London,. Dec. 2. A sensational attempt to rescue Sinn Fein prisoners from Derry gaol was foiled in the nick of time alter heavy fighting between sailors and police and civilians. A police patrol noticed a rope ladder outside a wall, and when they entered the gaol precincts found the bodies of two constables. These showed no marks of violence. It is believed they had been strangled. The attempt to rescue the Sinn Fein prisoners from Derry Gaol was the most sensational ever made. The rescuers drove up in motor cars at 3 o’clock in the morning. Simultaneously several prisoners in the cells called for water and then over-powered and tied and gagged the warders. The prisoners then rushed out into the prison yard, where they knocked down and tied up .several constables.

Meanwhile, the patrol interrupted the rescuers as the latter were throwing a rope ladder over the wall to a dozen bare-footed prisoners, who were found waiting inside ready to climb the ladder. The patrol, on entering the corridor, found Constables Little and German dead, handcuffed with their own handcuffs. It is now certain that the constables were murdered by means of drugged handkerchiefs. The military seized the motor cars and arrested three civilians. Two warders succeeded in forcing the prisoners back to their cells. Eighty-six prisoners in the gaol are now handcuffed and placed in separate cells.—Aus.-N.'Z. Cable Assn. A BELFAST RAID. London, Dee. 2. Five men and a girl were committed at the Belfast Assizes charged with an unlawful assembly. The police searched their house and seized large quantities of rifles and revolver ammunition. The walls were bored and gave communication passages into other houses. The police allege the house was the chief outpost of the Nationalist area. LABOR LEADER’S VIEWS. London, Dec. 2. Mr. Henderson, speaking at a Labor fair, said that if the • Ulsterites enter-, tained the dream that the South was to be dragooned or coerced back to violence and bloodshed because Ulster could not obtain its own particular form of settlement they were deluding themselves, and Labor would resolutely oppose such wickedness. A resumption of war would outrage the whole nation’s moral conscience and would be viewed with the deepest detestation. Ulster, like Sinn Fein, must make concessions. —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.