LOYALIST SHOT IN SYDNEY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 24, 23 October 1917, Page 4

LOYALIST SHOT IN SYDNEY

PECULIAR OCCURRENCE. Whilst sitting in the saloon bar of the> Queensland Hotel in Erskine Street, near the police station, recently, Elijah Frederick Battle, aged 43, a dairy farmer, of Kempsey, Macleay River, was wounded in both, legs by a bullet. Battle, wlio came to Sydney as a volunteer worker, was conversing with a policeman in the hotel when the roport ef a firearm wan heard, and almost simultaneously lis cried out that he was shot. The bullet was fired through a curtain which separated the threepenny bar from the saloon. The threepenny bar at tho time was crowded, and although the policeman rushed into it directly after the report he was unable to find anyone who witnessed the firing. The bullet penetrated Battle's thigh, and struck hi 6 other leg, making a small indentation. He was conveyed to the Sydney Hospital by tho police patrol wagon. Before the 6hot was fired a group of men was noticed, spying through the curtain at Battle and the poliwman, but no notice was taken of them. The theory is held by the police that the shot was .meant for the policeman and not Battle. The policeman has for some time been engaged on the detection of persons engaged in wharf pillaging, and he has several times been warned that he would get hurt if he became too active. The bad aim would' be accounted for by the bullet being fired through tho curtain without the' man who fired it seeing his Subsequently the. police arrested; two wharf-labourers. Bail in .£3O was allowed in each case.