FLYING TACKLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 148, 26 June 1939, Page 8

FLYING TACKLE.

ON A TRAMLINE.

THIEF HANDED OVER.

YOUTH'S NARROW ESCAP&

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDXEY, June 22.

A midday crowd in* Martin Place eaw a civilian's thrilling chase after a thief, and saw a tram pull up just in time as they were struggling together on the line. A constable, on point duty at the corner of King and Castlereagh Streets, saw a man take a set of golf clubs from a parked car and gave chase. The man fled towards Martin Place, narrowly escaping being knocked over by traffic, but owing to the risks he took he left the policeman behind. In Martin Place, a law student, Bruce Fullerton, 19, who is a Rugby Union player, saw the fleeing man and felled him with a flying tackle. They struggled together on the tramline, and when a tram was pulled up Fullerton's head was beneath the safety guard.

Fullerton, who is the son of a Ryde clergyman, said that he onlv did what any inan would have done, but later he rrali-ed that he had been very near to death.

"Any man with any sporting TTTinct would have given chase," he said. "I couldn't resist it. There's nothin? like keeping in practice. It surprised me to see so many men about making no attempt to stop the thief."' After the struggle the other man picked up Fullerton's hat and handed it back to him before he was taken away by the eonstaW* who started the chase.

How two other car thieves were foiled was also related at the Central Police Court this week. Miss Olga Clelland (21), saw two men moving off in her father'* ear outside a city service station. They were apparently wharf labourers, as one of them had a cargo hook in his hand, but she tackled them without hesitation with an attache case. The men pot out of the car and went around the corner and were arrested shortly afterward* by a wireless patrol car.

Miss Clelland said she felt quite cool and determined when she went for the men, but later she felt so sick and shocked that she had to stay away from work for two da vs.