NOVEL STRIKE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23157, 1 October 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOVEL STRIKE

PRISONER AT DARTMOOR TEN HOURS ON CHIMNEY STACK For ten hours a Dartmoor convict named Dawson sat on the top of a 75ft. chimney stack at the prison and defied efforts to get him down.i.> > ■: i' Dawson, who has served about 12 months of a sentence for housebreaking, ran from the parade ground, where lie was exercising, at 8 a.m., and climbed a steam pipe at the side of the chimney. He sat on top of the stack throughout the day, watched by liundrcds"of people gathered in the road outside the gaol. Prison officials; failed in their efforts to end the "sit out strike," even when they stoked the furnaces with the hope of "smoking"" him off his perch. But after watching his fellow prisoners march back to their cells at the end of their day's work, Dawson shouted that ho would come down if a ladder were erected. Scaffolding was constructed, and, as ho descended, convicts watching from their cells booed him and cheered tho warder who climbed up to assist him.