Landlady Wins the Day

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7201, 26 April 1930, Page 10

Landlady Wins the Day

DRINK-CRAZED man gave expression to his spiteful disposition with a revolver in Sydney recently, when, refused board and lodgings at a city boarding-house, he let loose a barrage of shots at. the proprietress and two of her boarders. They missed death only by inches. Saying that he. wanted board for the night, ■ a young man asked Helen Barter, the proprietress of a house in George Street, if she would accommodate him. Although the stranger was told that he could not be given a room, he insisted. on following her into the kitchen. Little did the proprietress realise what was in store for her, in the next few minutes. Suddenly the enraged stranger startled the whole household by producing a revolver with the threat that me first person who came near him would be shot dead. ■ He kept faith with his threat. A shot was fired at a boarder named James Houston, who approached the gunman on the stairways. Immediately there was .a general

Hold-Up in Boarding-House

scatter and while the intruder took a stand on the stairs, the household sought safety in the nearest cover. Hoping to call off what he thought was bluff, another boarder, Bert Bailey, challenged him only to retreat when the drink befuddled gunman fired again, the discharged bullet whizzing past Bailey’s head. With the . proprietress tension reached breaking, point when she boldly walked up to the aggressor and clutching at his left wrist defiantly told him to “get.” Punched Him on Nose “I've nothing to live foiv” replied the gunman, and he poked the barrel of the revolver into her breast, adding “I’m going to shoot you.” Knocking his arm upward she deflected the death shot, punched him on the nose, and then , hit , him on the head with the revolver, which a second eanlier might have sealed her fate.

He-was overpowered, the police were called, and the gunman was arrested and later charged.