HAIL OF BULLETS.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XL, Issue 5801, 1 May 1912, Page 8

HAIL OF BULLETS.

!,JUJXJK CGUNSKL, AND SHEUj " IFF KILJLKD.

\ CAMJ OK DESI'EUADOUS ESCAPE.

The notorious Virginian: outlaws known as the Allen' gang had a held day in Hillsville Assize Court on March 15. (hie -brother, Lloyd, had been convicted of felony, and Judge Massie was passing sentence when the prisoner drew a revolver, and, before the police knew what was happening, he bad killed the counsel for the prosecution, -William Foster, Sheriff- Web, as well as the judge on the bench. Just as the words "Three years* hard labor" rang out there was a

crack of a pistol shot, and the lawyer cul lapsed on the floor. Almost instantaneously the weapon was tura^ ed towards the 'bench, awl at the second report the juu-g-e slipped lifeless from the bench. The.- sheriff was in the act of whipping out his own revolver when Lloyd covered him, and the unerring moonlighter had sent a bullet through the heart of his third victim. The jurors pulled out their pisto's: so diil tire sympathisers among the public in the g-allery, and within two minutes a hundred S'hols were tired. Many of the jurors were hit, one fja&ally ; so jwas . 'the clerk of the court, a bullet going , through- his neck. One of the Aliens fell shot through the brain. • . )

In the >midst of the confusion Lloyd Allen, joined by his surviving brother and brien-ds, all with drawn revolvers, backed slowly out of the court room, holding 'their wouM-be pursuers in check at the point of the cold steel. Once outside they sprang into the saddle and dashed oil" to the noun-tains on horseback. The sherilT's posse was reinforced later by the .military, and any^cxly who could secure a horse was s-oon in pursuit. j The brothers are illicit distillers |of whisky, and as such have come repeatedly in contact with the criminal law.

Hilisville is a remote village on one of the south-western spurs o f t-'be Blue Kidge Mountains,' near • the North Carolina border, and not far from the Kentucky aiid Tennessee feud belt.