FIRED A REVOLVER

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 67, 19 March 1915, Page 2

FIRED A REVOLVER

1 ACROSS "OFFER QUEEN STREET A WOMAN'S NARROW ESCAPE. CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED MURDER. ' The -ring of a revolver from a shop doorway across the footpath along which | people were walking caused a sensation 'in Upper Queen Street shortly after six o'clock last night, and resulted in a | man named John Barry, aged 40 years, 'being arrested on a charge of having attempted to murder Mrs. Jessi e Drysdale, a middle-aged widow, who resides lin Turner Street, and was passing the doorway at the time the shot was fired. "ARE YOU MADJ" " I had a narrom escape," stated Mrs. DTysdale this morning, in relating the experience to a " Star" reporter. " I had been to Devonport to see my daughter, and was going home. It was about twenty minutes past six when I was going along Upper Queen Street, beside the shops on the left-hand side, when a man who was standing in a doorway pointed a revolver my way, and fired across my shoulders. I was almost past him at the time, and about a yard away from him. I got such a shock that I could not move. I stood there, and said: "What are you doing? Are you mad?" But he didn't speak; just put the revolver in his coat pocket, and walked slowly across the street. It was getting dark at the time and I could only see the man's back, but he was an utter stranger to mc." NOT A NERVOUS WOMAN. "Just then," continued Mrs. Drysdale, "a man came running out of the shop next door, and said to mc, ' You had a narrow escape.' I replied that I was aware of that. ' That man ought to be locked up,' I said. 'He's not safe to be about,' and I said to the man that I could not run, but he should run after the man with the revolver and stop him. •He seemed to hesitate about leaving the shop, so I said I would mind the shop while he was away. Then he went away after the man, and came back some minutes later and said a policeman had arrested him. I'm not a nervous woman," concluded Mrs. Drysdale, "but I did get a bit of a start when the revolver went off just at my shoulder." SEEN LOADING A REVOLVER. A fuller statement of the events was given a reporter by Mr. B. Goodman, proprietor of the Empire Cleaning Company, beside whose shop the startling events occurred. It was just getting dark, he said, when he noticed a man loitering in the doorway of his shop, and, not liking his appearance, went up to the man and asked, "What can I do for you?" As Mr. Goodman got to the stranger he noticed that the latter had a revolver in his hands and was loading it. He made no answer to Mr. Goodman's remark, but shoved the revolver into a coat pocket, and moved down the street to the doorway of Mr. Newcombe's picture-framing shop next door. The sight of the revolver had naturally caused Mr. Goodman to believe that things were not quite right with the stranger, so he went into hia shop to get his hat, with the idea of looking up a constable. While he was inside h*s shop he heard a revolver shot, aud rushed to the street, to see 'Mrs. Drywdale, evidently agitated, looking at the man who was walking slowly across the footpath, while a young man who had been walking behind Mrs. Drysdale, but out towards the kerbstone, and must have been also very close to tne line of fire, was also looking at the man. In Mr. Goodman's opinion the bullet from the revolver must have gone within a few inches of Mrs. Drysdale, and also close to tbe young man. FOLLOWED AND ARRESTED. He instructed the young man to go down tlhe street for a constable, and, leaving Mrs. Drysdale to mind ids tshop, walked across the iroad, keeping tbe man with the revolver in sight. He had fallowed h'.m -cross the street and down past the Anchor Hotel, when the young man and Gometable FWhcr came along, and the man was arrested. He wae inclined to struggle, and said he had no revolver, but when- ithe constable held both his hands, Mr. Goodman found a sixchambered "revolver and a box of cairt-ridg-as in an outside coat pocket. Then the man started to struggle, and call the other men "Engfish ," but he was overpowered and handcuffed. He was a big, rough type of man, said Mr. Goodman, and looked peculiar, but he wasn't drunk. The tpevolver was loaded in five of the six chambers. FOR MEDICAL OBSERVATION. The arrested man, who gave his name as John Barry, and age as 40 years, was brought before Mr. E. C. Cutt-en, S.M., this mocning on a charge of attempted murder. He wae .roughly dressed in working clothes, and his- nastleas, shifting eyes gave.tbe imp"""*— mon of raentai peculiarity. The prißoner made no remark at ail, when, at the -request of Senior Sergeant Butledge, he was remanded for a week for medical ohßetrvation.