MINIATURE BATTLE

Southland Times, Issue 19170, 14 February 1924, Page 5

MINIATURE BATTLE

FIGHT WITH IRISH DESPERADO. (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, February 13. (Received February 13, 7.5 p.m.) Mr Winston Churchill’s famous Sydney Street siege in London was to-day re-enacted in Dublin, where troops, police and detectives fought a masked desperado who fortified himself in a house in Camden Street after a midnight encounter with a Free State officer. At dawn troops climbed the surrounding buildings and opened a terrific fusillade while the desperado vigorously replied. Lieut. Penrose forced an entrance at the rear and fell wounded in the head by a stray bullet. After an hour’s resistance, during which the miniature battle was watched by thousands of citizens, the desperado collapsed from numerous wounds and was arrested. The Sydney Street episode referred to in the foregoing cable was one of the most spectacular events connected with Mr Winston Churchill’s administration as Home Secretary in the Liberal regime a few years before the Great War. A body of foreign Anarchists had been particularly active and Scotland Yard investigations traced their headquarters to a house in Sydney Street, where their operations were directed by a notorious character known as "Peter the Painter.” The troops and police fought a miniature battle with the desperadoes, a number being killed and wounded on either side. In the confusion thus created, "Peter the Painter” escaped and is now believed to be a central figure in the notorious Russian Cheka.