EIGHT SHOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 184, 5 August 1936, Page 9

EIGHT SHOTS.

SENSATION IN HOTEL. NEW SOUTH WALES GUNMEN. HEAVIER, PENALTIES. ! ! (From Our Own Correspondent.! I SYDNEY, July 29. Last Wednesday afternoon about 100 men who happened to be drinking at Park iew Hotel, Alexandria, had a dramatic interlude staged for their entertainment. A man walked into the I bar from the street, and as he came i somebody called a warning, "Look out!" And this man, wearing a bandage round his head, took the alarm, separated himself from the crowd at the bar. and ran down a passage behind a glass door. The last comer, producing an automatic, fired eight shots in rapid succession through the door behind which the fugitive was evidently hiding. The glass was into fragments and bullets i ploughed their way in all directions , through the panels, but the object of this; fusillade, who had crouched iow behind j the door, escaped unhurt. The gunman I then hurried out of the hotel, stopped a ! passing lorry, threatened the driver with : his revolver, jumped on board and hur- 1 ried away in the direction of St. Peter's. ' The police soon arrived, but they were too late to do anything but admire the 1 gunman's marksmanship. The last six 1 bullets had all passed through the gap, nine inches square, made in the glass by 1 the first two, and the police admitted : that it was "very neat work." However. 1 they were quickly on the trail of the ' fugitive and next day Edwin Goodwin J (28), a labourer, was charged with shoot- . ing "with intent to do grievous bodily' 1 harm." | 1 Gun "For Sale"! j 1 The prisoner has been remanded for a ] few days, but the chief interest of the , case centres on the willingness of cer- ] tain inhabitants of our "nether world" , to use firearms for the settlement of I personal disputes, and the facility with ' which they can secure the weapons that the require. Happily our Courts are, ■

beginning to take these murderous escapades rather more seriously than heretofore and some of the recent sentences, though well deserved, have been marked by exemplary severity. The other day Judge Curlewis had before him one Harold Maher, who was charged with burglary at Wollongorig. When Maher was captured, he was armed with an iron bar and was carrying an auto-j matic in his pocket. He attempted to: j convince the Court that he was trying to, j sell the gun and that he had no intention, of using it; but the judge was sceptical,I and though Maher had been wounded in | the leg by a bullet fired by a liightwatch- j ■ man the Court refused to consider hissufferings sympathetically. Judge Cur- | lewis gave him four years' imprisonment and made 110 secret of the fact that the presence of the automatic was an important factor in fixing the length of the sentence.' Another case of the same sort came before Mr. 'Shepherd, S.M., at the Central | Police Court on the same day. Arthur Taplin, who had been arrested on a | charge of "assault with intent to rob," I was charged also with carrying a pistol I without license. When the police took j him up he had in the pocket of his over-j coat a revolver with eight cartridges in the magazine, and one in the barrel; and in the other pocket was an extra maga- i zine for the gun containing nine live: cartridges. j "Target for Shooters." I Taplin's counsel assured the Court' that Taplin—who is only 21 years old—j is "not a shooter, but a 'target for | shooters," and Taplin had told the police I when they took his automatic away—' "You can't have too much ammunition' about you; I have been in a few hot! corners lately, and I would sooner do aj 'sixer' for carrying that than be put underground in a box." Taplin also alleged that, if he got a chance he would apply for a license for his sun. but the police assured the Court that he.would not get it. Mr. Shepherd then fined' Taplin £100, in default 200 davs' imprisonment; and as he is only a bar-' man. and is also, it is alleged, a fugitive 1 from justice, he is likely to be in"" gaol till the end of the year. Mr. Shepherd, however, certainly did not err on the side of severity here, for Taplin is committed for trial on a charge of robbing a pawnbroker in Oxford Street. Paddington (the Marks case, which dates back to .Tune 10 last) and the magis-j trate, readintr over the list of his pre-1 vious convictions, observed that "This 1

offence is of the same nature as that for which he was sentenced before to three years' hard labour." The full story of the Marks assault has yet to be told; and 110 doubt the owner of the dog which pursued the assailant will appear in Court and will strive to enact punishment for the "mirder" of his "faithful hound," who was poisoned a few days later. So 'far as Taplin's pubHc record goes, it is clear that nothing less than rigorous punishment will suffice to protect peaceful citizens against a gunman who wanders casually about with an unlicensed automatic, carrying a dozen or a score, of lives in his hands.