BATTLE OF STEPNEY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1045, 7 February 1911, Page 6

BATTLE OF STEPNEY.

EXTRAORDINARY SCENES IN LONDON. .!' ' THE CROWDS AND THE FIGHTING. SUBSEQUENT CRITICISM. . Tho London comepondent of tho "Sydney Morning Herald," writing on January G, gives the following description of tho extraordinary scenes at Stepney, conncctcif with tho Houndsditch tragedy:— i "Who could huvo imagined a sceno liko this in England. 5 " said the Homo Secretary, as, with his top hat oil tho back of his head, and his hands tucked into the .pockets of'.his fur coat, ho pooped round the corner of tho East London Street, whilst litilo spits and fplashes of brickdust and" mortar wero being chipped off two oivposito houses some way: down,the empt;' street, and a lino of, big grinning policwnen struggled with a good-humoured crowd in tho far background. In truth, ono has to record this 'week probably the most extraordinary sceno that has been beheld in London for a century. City men arriving Into in London on Tuesday last met ontsido their railway 6tations tho newsboys bawling down tho 6trcet, with placards • such as "Siego in East End," "Battlo in Progress," "Murderers at Bay." As Loncon poured outfrom its offices to lunch thero wero tlio news', sheets in front of it. "Scols Guards Called Out," "Battlo Cantiuues." Iveeiiless to ' say, thousands mado straight for the east without waiting for lunch, and thousands raoro who returned to work fidgeted for a few minutes at their desks, and then seized thoir hats and bolted. Taxis, t 'bus:s, trams,, swarming with pom-ed down tho two wido thoroughfares of East London. Road, aud Jlilo End lioad, which branch off liko a capital V from Ahljate, until they camo to a point in either road whero a certain third, road ran, across them like tlio cross stroke of rapital A, and whero tho traffic was blocked in ono black, struggling mass, through which a way was only being kept clear, for tho tramlines. Every tram '■ and' motor .'bus brought more people. There is said to havo been three hundred thousands thero at tho end, though tho iiguro* is hardly believable. Any way, there you lett your taxi, and mado the .best 'of, your' way, accordiug to your . capacity for strategy,' towards tho end'of that .cross street 'or by a wide deviation around tho by-street at tlio back, or oven into ona of tho houses in the neighbourhood, where - people wero paying tho grimy, hook-nosed householder anything from half-a-crown to ten. shillings for the privilege of climbing on to his tiled roof, from which all they could see—ns often as not—was a forest of chimney-pots and other tiled roofs crowdcd with other spectators., i They could sc© 0110. public-liouso •in particular, which happened to stick out a good way above most of tho ' other roofs, and which was crowded with spectators like a dress circle. For' there —in certain opposing houses a littlo way down, the empty cross street below theui—wero two lots of. men, who for seven hours wero blazing at one another with ho end of rifles and pistols from the. depths of the opposite rooms, whilst tho police, plain-clothes men, aud soldiers peered ind took occasional pot-shots from every recess and corner. The struggling con-' stables did their best to keep tlio populace of London back in the two great main thoroughfares at either end, and in every little sido street and alley in the district round. Some of the Criticism. „• WhVn ifc.is said that over a thousand policemen" ivero called upon to deal with two anarchists, it must bo remembered that-Very,nearly tho whole of tho thousand polieo there wero eventually engaged, not m keeping in tho anarchists, but in hooping out tho people of London from at least eight separate thoroughfares, and there was not ono matt too'many for the job. Thero was drawn, up a second cordon within tho first one. And, even bo, it is an interesting speculation, which no ono'has yet answered, to imagine what would havo happened had tho anarchists managed to bolt from their front door up tho street, with the soldiers and police, all tip-toe with excitement, lined across tho street in front and behind them, and a. thickly-packed London crowd making A magnificent background at cither end. After all, if you aro going to havo a desperate pitched battle in the middle of London in tho daytime, in tho spaco directly between two of tho biggest and busiest thoroughfares in the metropolis, without materially disturbing • tho city businesses, tho thing needs somo organising. At any rate, you can hardly err on the side of doing things too thoroughly. It is not a bad feat to havo finished tho matter with only ono unfortunately serious accident to a fireman. Thero has been-a good deal of natural criticism of tho authorities for bringing up a squad of Scots Guards, a Maxim gun, and a section of I'ield Artillery. At tho same time, ono can't, in fairness, help- imagining tho cry that would have gone np had any accident happened through their erring in tho. opposite direction. -•••■-

What the Londoners Say. Tho first thing that Mr. Winston Churchill, did after having a good look nt the position from Eomcwhero well out in tho street was to order tho crowd to bo cleared as far back as possible. All tho actual fighting that tho averago Londoner, even in tho most favourable position, saw was an occasional puff of broken brickdust. But tho crowd could hear continually the sharp repeating crack of Mauser pistols and the answering sing of Leo-Enfields. It cheered cach detachment of police or soldiers that came up. AVhen, after midday, whispers of grey smoko wero noticed oozing from tho higher windows, and it was clear tho house was on fire, tho crowd broke into tremendous cheering. They chccrcd tho firo brigade when it eaino up. and later on, when four firemen wcro carried away to the London Hospital, crushed and helpless, out of tho building, which, had • partlv lately fallen on them, tho crowd, o'f course, jumped to tho conclusion thnt they had been shot by the anarchists, nnd its temper became audibly black. That was what thousand upon thousand of Londoners said and heard last Wednesday. Perhaps the greater part of tho crowd was foreign. 1 Thero was a, certain sprinkling in it that looked ns if it must bo quite ready to help the two anarchists, find so plain-clothes men, with pistols, cro said to havo been scattered through the crowd in ease of the enthusiastic. But the majority wero inoffensive Jews, whole-heartedly siding with tho police. Thoso nearer the dangerous street coulii fee tho whole window full of white-faced Jewish children, with their faces crammed against tho glass. Several of tho foreign Jews brought tho police nnd soldiers by way of showing them their sympathy. Ono old lady stood in an ojien doorway, well in tho zone of fire, with her arms folded under her apron, and another crossed tho street at a critical moment with n jug full of ammunition. Thero ran bo no doubt about tho fierceness oi tho firing between tho windows directly across tho street, because ono could afterwards seo a whole crowd of bullet marks around the edgo of those directly opposito ono another. Tho polico anil soldiers in tho two-storied houses opposite tho anarchists pulled dawn tho blinds, and only raised the window about two inches nt tho bottom, and occasionally rested a_ cautious muzr.lo on tho ledge, took, aim, nnd fired from there. The anarchists probably did not show themselves even so much. They crawled below tho window, raised a Mauser pistol -'thej; had 12 of them—to the sill, nnd fired in tho direction in which they kr.cw the opposito window to be. At tho most they may havo occasionally raised their eyes to tho sill to got nn idea of where the opposito windows were. One is pretty certain of this, because only two or three of the windows directly across tho street havo bullet marks "round, about twenty marks all wide except ono directly through the sash— and few, or nouo of tho panes, nnpenred to be broken when seen immediately after the fight. The anarchists also broke a few tiles and chimney-pots, nnd ono saw on a houso wall, say at the back, tho mark of a shot, evid*nlly fired obliquely from a back window,

Tho Loiidoa papers picturo tho anarchists, standing firing from tho back of their rooms, but, as a matter of fact, one is morally certain they must have remained totally hidden and have crawled along the floor when'they went from one story to another, or they could not have failed to be hit by tho stream of lead which was pumped into tho room. Except at tho very first, in tho early morninu, when two men wero vaguely seen in tho top window in their shirt sleeves firing at tho party which was hauling tho wounded Sergeant J.ceson over tho opposite roofs, and at tho very last, when the form of a man was clearly seen by tho light of tho flames lying face downwards on a bed in tho ground floor] room, tho men were not seen at all. Tho dirty grey curtains at one'window wero onco noticed to be pressed sharplv forward by somo object behind it, Thero was a flash and an answering volley, and tho object' dropped and was slowly withdrawn. On another occasion n man was thought to bo seen amidst the smoke, forcing his way out of an upper window; but it turned out -to bo. only a bellying smoko behind tho curtain.: In one room for somo time, now obscured by ■ tho emoko now appearing again thcro was seen a small steady bTiming flame. The only explanation suggested, is thnt n gaslight had been lit, and that they wero burning papers by it, and, indeed, burnt papers camo floating out' at times into tho street. There appears no doubt that at tho last, after they bad been driven gradually towards tho ground floor by tho flames, two final shots wero fired in quick succession at tho house whero the bodies wero afterwards found. ;

Was Ihe Ending Satisfactory? One is net going to criticise from an armchair, but there is just ouo point on which nobody is quite satisfied. tho ponce, dressed as wharf labourers, carters, lars, had been hunting for a week the south of Commercial Road, winch was described lately in tho "Herald, and about Sunday it camo to their knowledge that two of the men-'warned had been seen in a street on the other side of Commercial Road. They hau information of. tho exact houso on Monday night, ,and\ at onco—a littlo after nudknocked fit the door, and secretly aroused , all the ordinary in'matcs\in -*,tho; house/ except one (Russian woman named Gershon, in whoso room the police somehow appear to have known tho anarchists wero living. Tho Jewish landlady'rather plucklly went uphusband refused to do so on any account—to fetch this woman. Sho tapped softly on tho woman's door, which seems to havo been locked, and then found her coming out, not from her own bedroom, but from a storeroom at tho back. She said she had gono there to put a.penny in the meter. Tho landlady got her downstairs ■on some pretence, • and- tho police on tho ground floor .arrested "her;. .' .. "It is not yet-known-what this woman told the police. Sho may have said that the men uostairs had their doors barricaded and fortified—ono account says she did. Any Way. for some reason, tho police did not Tush tho room then and there. Probably some detectives would .have been killed. But if a rush was to bo made that seems to have been tho time to mako it. Tho police chose, perhaps rightly, to wait to find out what the , men meant to do, by, throwing a brick through their window—the answer to which was an immediate volley from behind • tho curtain and > through tho pi ass of the closed window oh tho first floor. To Besiege tho House. They offered to rush tho house later. But as it would havo been quite easy for at least a dozen of them to havo been shot before they overpowered the anarchists, and •as it was morally certain the two men would always keep a last shot for themselves, the Homo Secretary would not allow tho attempt. Ho made somo of the police use shotguns in the hope of disabling . tho anarchists without killing them. As is known, tho anarchists were almost completely successful in wiping out any evidence tho house contained beforo they died. With tlio extraordinary similar events that surrounded tho end. of . the Kelly gang before,,one/s mind im' cannot criticise tho London 'authorities ; too closely for their action in . this unprecedented emergency.