ALARM CLOCK EPISODE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 13921, 25 March 1909, Page 2

ALARM CLOCK EPISODE.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEK IT WAS SET AT THE WRONG HOTJR. - Two police constables and a gardener have been seriously injured in an extraordinary conflict, the result of a trivial error and a ludicrous series of crosspurposes, in the grounds of a residence in Leigham Court Road, Streatham. One of the maids at the house rises at six o'clock by the aid of an alarm clock, and opens the side gate for the milkman and other early callers. Last, Wednesday (January 20) this maid, by mistake, set the alarm for three o'clock and on being awakened by its clamour dressed as usual and went out to the gate. It is, of course, as dark at 1 six. o'clock as at 3 a.m. at this time of the year. The noise of the clock and the opening of the gate aroused the master of the nouse, and he, not understanding the cause, and attributing it to burglars, \Vho have of late been busy in the neighbourhood, threw open his bedroom window and blew a police whistle. The noise and the alarm also roused the gardener, who sleeps in a small lodge. The gardener, 'scrambling, into some clothes, y&h towards the house, and his arrival synchronised with the advent of a plain-clothed policeman, also running. Each mistook the other for a burglar. The gardener was armed with a thick stick, and made so fierce an attack that the constable in self-defence felled him to the ground with his bludgeon. The son of the owner of the house now appeared with a mountaineer's axe, and at the same moment another policeman arrived Dire confusion was the

m V • * *< * f result, for the young man with the axe, arriving while <the first constable-was bending over the fallen man, never doubted that the gardener had h£en assailed by burglars. He struck; out with -the axe* at* the Becond policeman, who was also in plain clothes, cubing his . head badly and stretching him on the ground. As others arrived on 4he scene something pf a free fight developed^ and before an understanding'ewas arrived at ten constables— of whomibali were in plain clothes, and one had come a distance of nearly two- mile& — wetx> on the scene. The gardener and one* oi the .constables are badly hurt, the gardener's condition being serious. The otjier injured man. has temporarily lost the use of one hand, and is- also somewhat bruised. Others of the combatants received serious damage. No one is, to blame, and it is plain that; the oVner of- the house can certainly complain neither of the laxity of the Servants nor the inattention of °tlie police:— Observer. .