SYDNEY STRIKE SCENES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 11 August 1908, Page 2

SYDNEY STRIKE SCENES.

PLUCKY DRIVERS. There were some lively incidents in 1 the Sydney strike. Men who refused ! to go out had a trying time. Mud, road metal, eggs, fruit and expletives in fine variety were hurled at men who had' the courage of their opinions. Probably the pluckiest of all the men who refused to strike were the drivers who stuck to their posts at the corner of Goulbourn and George streets. A driver mounted one car and made preparations to move, but the threats and persuasions' of the crowd were too much for him, and he joined the strikers. He was succeeded by "a ruddyfaced young fellow, with the firm jaw of the prize-fighter and the pluck of' a grizzly." While someone re-fixed the trolley-pole he stood there facing an infuriated crowd, who surged round his car, spat at him, and blasphemed. Unable to intimidate him, the crowd began to throw things. Eggs broke on the front of the car and on his body, still he held, to his post. Then one of the crowd jumped on to the car, and knocked him down, and others followed, and started to belabor him as he lay on the floor. The arrival of a couple of constables enabled the driver 'to get on his feet, and his attackers quickly retired. Flushed ;with heat and anger, he started his car amid a hail of eggs. It did not get far, for the trolley-pole was pulled off the wire, and while it was being readjusted the shower of missiles was resumed. The driver of another car fared even worse. "No sooner had the driver taken his position on the car than an egg hit him full in the face, and then a rain of'missiles burst around him. But eggs and oranges were not sufficient to . satisfy the mob, though they were hurled in dozens. A bottle was thrown and just missed the man by an inch. It crashed through the window front. A man with' a billy-can full of apples, which he had evidently bought to take home, became so frenzied that he picked them out one by one and hurled them at the solitary figure on the front of the car. The leaders, of the mob grew hoarse in their cries of rage as the driver, forlorn and battered object as he looked, would not leave his post. It was little wonder that the driver quailed before the outburst, and when the police arrived was too overcome to move the lever." The driver who took his place met with treatment of a similar character, but did not quail, not even when a large piece of wood flew past his ear and smashed the front door of the car.