FIGHT WITH MADMAN

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 October 1921, Page 10

FIGHT WITH MADMAN

350 FEET OVER RIVER

In the presence of thousands of people, including the crews of steamships and tugboats in the harbour, two New York policemen rescued a madman who was trying to throw himself from the top of one of the towers of the great Williamsburg Bridge, which joins New \ork City to Long Island, over the East River.

The towers from which the cables of the suspension bridge hang are. 350 ft. high -The man, a young Hungarian, who climbed the tower by an iron ladder used for inspection purposes, was seen °n the narrow platform at the top. wildly waving* his arms. Two traffic policemen* immediately lett their posts and went up the tower. In a few minutes they closed with the madman, and the three men struggled and swayed on the tiny platform in mid-air. Failing to subdue the Hungarian, one policeman knocked him senseless with a blow from his truncheon.

The two officers then faced the most hazardous part of their task, that of gatt:ng the man down. The last 100 feet of the tower has two ladders a few reet apart. Down these the constables carried the unconscious man. One held his ankles and the other his wrists ?r T?- y swin£ing between them. Holding on with their free hand and buffeted by a high wind, the policemen slowly made their way down to safety. As they set foot on the upper roadway a great burst of cheering came from thousands of spectators, and the din was swelled by the sirens of steamers and tiigboats on the river and by dozens or motor horns.

The Johannesburg authorities are at i -?I5 wl£ B',,?? d to knOw what to do ■wrth a full-blooded Zulu who speaks English fluently but not a word of his native tongue. He has wandered ail over South Africa in a yam search for work, but owing to his inability to speak Zulu the rest of his fcribe treat him with suspicion. He was adopted ' r? en of!, )Urw Years ol<J a& the mascot of the 3rd Hussars then stationed at Mantzburg, and he went to England ; with the regiment. He settled in London, and when the war broke out he joined the Machine Gun Corps. On be:ng demobilised he decided to return out of curiosity, to hi® native land He has now come to the conclusion' that me had better return "home" to Wap- ' £- ngiL in vth 2 East Bnd <>f London, where 1 his boyhood was apeat,