MAN-HUNTING ON THE TILES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 49

MAN-HUNTING ON THE TILES.

Escapes and .Captures at Dizzy

Heights.

Some of the most remarkable and exciting stories in the modern history of criminality, as evidencing the daring of .depredators, and the unswerving pluck of the police, are those which relato to escaping thieves who have sought the roofs of buddings, and have there, at fearful heights, held the police in check for hours, in gome cases escaping altogether. One Comparatively recent case of this kind is notable in the list of such instances from the fact that two London burglars, in Oheapßide and in broad daylight, kept no fewer than 20 constables and many civilian helpers of the latter chasing them over the tops of roofs and wall?, ranging in height from 60ft to 100 ft, for the inoredibla period of 11 hours. At the outset, at about 6 o'clock in the morning, three men were seen at the top of a very high wall at the back of a jeweller's shop, and one of the three, the youngest of the party, in his hurry to avoid capture fell, with a fearful crash, through a glass Bky light ; but his companions, gaining a much higher wall near, ran along this like cat?, pursued, in the first instance, by a constable, whe blew bis whistle and gave the alarm. Whilst the unhappy man who had fallen was removed to a hospital, a regular gathering of constables had taken place, and a long chase had begun. Over roofs and skylights, sometimes jumping, and at other times climbing, incredible distances, the two men went, but the police kept relentlessly after them, jumping when they jumped and climbing when they climbed. At one time, the two men, by utilising a water-spout, actually reached ground in a narrow alley, but after this they mounted again, and, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon — after being hunted for about 10 hours, in fact— they disappeared. But the whole neighbourhood was up and excited, the interiors of buildings near were searched, and finally the two men were found, utterly exhausted, hiding in a huge bale of goods in a warehouse.

But more recently, in the Fentonville district of LondoD, an almost equally exciting and dangerous chase took place, this time in the darkness, and with two constables and two burglars as the main actors in the story. The thieves were first observed at No. 18 of a row of pretty lofty bouses, and a con-

stable, breaking into an unoccupied house to do Go, and summoning his companion from the street to keep guard, by himself followed the two men, who bad disappeared along the roofs, coming upon one of them lying in the gutter of No. 36 of the same row. Madly did this man, with the officer close at his heels, tear along over three more dangerous roofs, till the tiles of a ohapel — this rising higher than the houses — were reached. With a wild spring both gained the higher roofing, the unusually stesp slope waa traversed, and then about 18ft of waterspout helped both the pursuer and the pursued to the roof of another house below. Here the pursued began to tear a hole in the tiles, throwing these at the officer as he did bo, but the officer gained the hole, on the brink of which the two men fought almost for life, one with his truncheon and the other with a piece of loose slate, and both being on their knees. The constable, had he not held on by the edge of the hole, would have been dashed to the street beloiv, as he almost wag while conveying his whistle to bis mouth ; but his antagonist at last surrendered, the other constable came along by the same treacherous footway, and burglar number two, crawling out from behind a chimney stack further on, gave himself up. But the whole party had to get back as they bad come, and, to effect this, constables and burglars alike had to help each other to gain the high roof of the chapel already spoken of. Ono of the constables climbed up the waterspout, and with his own belt and that of his companion he pulled up the latter "and the two captives. More grim and terrible by far was the fight on the roof of a large villa residence near Highgate some few years ago when the revolver- armed burglar scare was at its height. In this case two constables and three burglars were er gaged, the lastmentioned being followed to the very high pitched roof of a Gothic villa. Two of the burglars had revolvers, and one of them at the. very outset fired at a constable as he appeared above the edge of the roof, the bullet entering the fleshy part of the shoulder. But the two officers went on, despite revolvers, and then a terrible struggle took place. The unarmed burglar and the wounded constable clutched each other, and both fell a short distance and on to a lower roof, down a steep elope of which they both rolled, the gutter at the edge— a, frail obstruction— bringing them up to some extent. The constable actually overshot the edge, to which he clung with both bands at a distance of 35ft from the ground, whilst the burglar, who was lying in the gutter, struck at his hands with what appeared to be a screw-driver, and the officer fell with a thud upon the soft mould beneath, the burglar making for the ladder the gang had used and escaping for the time. Meanwhile, the other constable had followed the remaining men, one of whom fired | no .fewer than .four shots at him, but one only. of thtse took effect, and the offioer, though badly hit in the thigh, reacHed his assailant, grasped him by the legs and threw him- heavily, the ruffian rolling down the roof and -falling, to his serious disablement, upon the top of an outbuilding at a lower level. i Assistance ' arrived, the other armed burglar, after many' threats, surrendered, and he and his companion "were secured. Both were sent to penal servitude for life, and the third man, who was arrested subsequently, was also ■ sentenced -to a long term. Both the constables were - very badly hurt, and the writer was, indeed, sorry to learn, a year or two ago, that the one who fell had died whilst a comparatively young man, he never having fully recovered fiom the effects of his injuries. Not long since, at Liverpool, two plain clothes men, chasing a man they " wanted " over several housetops, completely lost sight of him, and it was afterwards proved that this man entered an attic by the skylight, robbed the household he had thus invaded, and coolly walked out by the front door. At Birmingham, too, a vircgo who mounted to the roof of a lodging house four storeys high, kept' four constables and a fireman at bay for nearly five hours by standing near a very small skylight with a coal rake in her hand and determination in her mien. She had to be persuaded to capitulate at the finish. Perhaps the biggest roof haul ever made by -the police was ia the case of a club raid at Manchester, where some 40 persons, finding other means of escape cut off, retreated to the flat roof of the building, a very high one. All of them were captured directly save one man, who, greatly dreading being exposed as a gambler, epent the night and the whole of the following day on a neighbouring roof, where he so placed himself that he dared not move a foot in any direction, and he had ultimately, more dead than alive, to be got down by fire-escape men in tbe presence of a great crowd, many members of j which had heard his cries. I