SHARP CLASH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 7

SHARP CLASH.

ANTI-EVICTION RIOT.

Desperate Fight in Newcastle Ends in Many Casualties.

SEVERE INJURIES.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

SYDNEY, June 14,

Nine policemen and about 20 unemployed pickets were injured, some of them severely, in a desperate anti-eviction fight to-day at a cottage at Highfield, Newcastle. Thirty arrests were made.

The affray started when a small army of policemen descended upon the cottage with the intention of evicting the tenant. The unemployed were in possession of the cottage. They were armed with all sorts of weapons, chiefly pointed sticks.

The police rushed the place brandishing their batons. They were met by fierce opposition. Blows were exchanged which felled on© man after another amid the wildest shouting.

It was not long before eeveral of the combatants lay on the ground insensible. Every few minutes injured men ran out of the cottage and took refuge among the crowd of onlookers.

The task of the police was unenviable, but they soon had the upper hand. A brick thrown at one policeman missed its mark, but felled an onlooker.

The battle ended as suddenly as it had started. Subsequently, ambulance men worked for an hour rendering first aid and conveying the injured to hospital.