DESPERATE CRIMINAL.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17983, 29 January 1924, Page 12

DESPERATE CRIMINAL.

TRIES TO END HIS LIFE. SYDNEY, January 19. A desperate .criminal, well known, to the police in all States of. Australia and in New Zealand, made an attempt to explode a detonator in his teeth in Brisbane on Tuesday. He was discovered at work just in^ime. Following en his. arrest, he" was searched in the usual manner, a quantity of gelignite being discovered in his pockets. But a short length of fuse and a detonator were hidden in his sleeve, and escaped detection. He was handcuffed and placed in a niotor-car for transportation to the Eoma street station, for which he set off with a detective. As the car moved along he dropped his head in his hands, as though disgusted at the turn events had taken, and ho kept this position until the station was reached, .without tlio detective having noticed anything amiss. When the car stopped he stood up with an oath of disgust, and threw a piece of fuse to the ground. "You're tho luckiest man in Brisbane," he told the detective. "I've been trying to set that cap off ever since wo got in the'car!" An examination of the cap of the detonator showed where his teeth had made indentations. Ho explained that he had attempted to explode it by bringing his teeth together with all the force of which ho was capable.