Page 5 Advertisements Column 5

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18510, 22 March 1922, Page 5

FISHER AND SPENDIFF. LAST MESSAGES DISCOVERED. HEROIC STAND BY POLICE. CAPETOWN. March 21. (Received March 22, at 0.30 a.m.) The commando leaders, Erasmus and Vilioen, who escaped when the Reds were “mopped in the Newlands area, have now been captured. The fate of Fisher and Spendiff has been finally set at rest by the finding of their last messages in a safe at the Red headquarters at the Fordsburg Market Hall. The text reads; “March 14. I died for what I believed to be rightr—the cause. (Signed) H. Spendiff and Percy Fisher.” On the reverse side was a message from Spendiff to his wife: “Good-bye, Amy. Wo died by our own bullets—not theirs.” Information which has now been gathered reveals how great was the danger during the last week. A handful of mounted police was all that stood between the Reds sweeping into the town from the west on Thursday night. The men were so worn nut when the Light Horse took charge on Friday evening that the police dropped down whore they stood and went to sleep. At Germiston, the most important railway (unction in the Union. Sub-Inspec-tor O’Connor, with six railway police, bluffed a commando of 600 Reds and succeeded in keeping them off until Friday evening, when the military took control. All the unions concerned in the strike have now returned to work. Of 20.000 employed in the mines before the strike, upwards of 5000 remained at work. Of the remainder, half are already back or will he absorbed in the near future. Competent opinion is that the remaining 8000 will bo absorbed in the course of 12 mouths, now that it is possible to adiust wages on an economic basis,—A. and N.Z. Cable.

“I'he King, gentlemen !” And (Tie toast was honoured in the King of Whiskies— Watson’s No. 10. —Aclvt,