GRIM PICTURE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11549, 28 January 1932, Page 5

GRIM PICTURE

DARTAIQOR pjJIUNG IL\ID POIROF QFf'IpJAL’S PRAPUTO

SCUM OF EARTH FACED

(U.P.A. by Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received. Jan. 27, 5,5 p,m.)

LQNDPN, Jam 26

Although tho troops wore withdrawn this morning, two companies frp.pi thp’Wiltshire Regiment, including lUi n 9PV4> were stationed at The Crown Hill all day in readiness ancj army lorries worefprovided to hurry them to Dar.tmoqr if necessary. These precautions were regarded as ■ essential; owing to”the heavy fog. Polios are patrolling Hip barricaded approaches to-night, when the prison is again tloocjlighted. Warders are still attending (lie livestock and carrying out other farm Unties.

Sir H. Du Parcq, K .C., at Bristol, has arrived and opened tho inquiry. The convicts expect to, ho permitted to give evidence. A grim picture of the interior of Dartmoor is provided by a police official who was relieved after 48 hours’ duty. From what ho says, tho conditions must have been terrible. Apparently every convict in the two five-storey buildings, lined with cells, was incessantly either hanging on a. door or stamping on the floor. A handful of warders were anxiously pacing the corridors, realising they had to deal with the scum of tho earth-

“Ringleaders, rounded up by the police and placed in Ihe punishment cells, included a dozen of the worst desperadoes I have ever seen”, added the warder. “That I here were terrible possibilities in the mutiny is proved by the weapons, which included ten butchers’ knives, pick handles and fire bars, which had been hidden under the flagstones of the buildings allotted to those prisoners classed as dangerous.

“CONVICTS ABJECT COWARDS”

“The experience of Sunday when 40 police scattered 300, shows that (lie convict's are abject cowards. Nevertheless, there was a tense atmosphere last night, when we heard that 100 lags from London’s underworld had gathered in tho neighbourhood and were planning a rescue. AYe saw the convicts signalling to each other from the windows and all night we heard an uncanny, hoarse muttering, with which the whole prison was rumbling, but, Because tho convicts were talking so guardedly, it was impossible to detect the offenders. TROOPS A GREAT HELP

“Twenty police on duty in the prison were given loaded revolvers anil assisted in patrolling the cells. The presence of the troops greatly eased the situation. T believe tlie worst is now over.”

Scotland Yard lias begun to search London’s underworld to discover the extent to which well-known criminals were implicated in tho raid at Dartmoor. It has been ascertained that several nro missing from their usual haunts. PLOT HATCHED INSIDE ? A released convict states that the plot to escape was hatched inside the prison, though men waiting outside. with money and motor cars, inflamed the convicts. Discoveries in the cells included grappling irons, attached to iropes, to assist escapes.

A prison official says he docs not anticipate any further trouble inside, but they nr? not taking; nny chances. Further developments are likely outside, but. the police, in conjunction with the military, are dealing with ihem.