DANCE OF CONVICTS

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 25 May 1932, Page 7

DANCE OF CONVICTS

GLEE! IN DARTMOOR RIOT. LONDON, May *l2. . “1 was dancing with tears in my] eyes,” said William Mason, one of the prisoners charged at Princetown Assizes with taking part in the Dartmoor mutiny, describing how, during the riot, he danced to the central offices. Another of the accused, George Carton, explained that prisoners outside the smokers’ shed danced in couples when the rioters’ impromptu band came. “I pushed in the only two windows remaining unbroken, because they looked odd. I did other damage. Then ■I saw officers with rifles. I said, ‘This is no place for me,’ and I hopped it to the smokers’ shed, where I ate two raw eggs and a rice pudding, drank a pint of milk, and had bread and cheese. The police stood us with our bands up and our backs to the wall. A ‘copper,’ on being told that a convict bad bread and butter in his hand, hit him on the head, remarking ‘Make a sandwich of that’!”