TWO MEN WOUNDED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21784, 14 October 1940, Page 6

TWO MEN WOUNDED

Jehovah’s Witnesses Both Residents Of Timaru Sensational Interruption at Meeting By Telegraph—Press Association DUNEDIN, October 13. There was a sensational interruption at a meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses held in the Oddfellows’ Hall, Oamaru, to-night, as a result of which two men were wounded, one by a bayonet and the other by a rifle bullet. The injured men are: George Robert Edwards, of Timaru, bayonet wound in the hand. Harry Frederick McAuley, of Timaru, bullet wound In the right thigh.

McAuley lost a great deal of blood before first aid was applied and is on the dangerously ill list in the hospital. William Meehan, of 24 Usk Street, Oamaru, a married man with five children, an employee of the Waitakl Power Board was arrested.

The chairman of the meeting was Mr Irvine Stuart Keltie, of Wellington, who was accompanied by about 10 of Jehovah's Witnesses from Dunedin and Timaru. He said he was reproducing an electric transcription of an address by Judge Rutherford which, when first delivered in New York, caused a riot by 500 of the followers of Father Coughlan, the radio priest.

Two men, Mr Keltie said, were seated in a car outside the hall and the usher invited them in. The car was driven away and a few minutes later a man came to the door. Mr Keltie alleged that the man told the usher to get out of the way or he would be shot and the usher, in the course of a scuffle, received a bayonet wound in the hand. Hearing the noise of the scuffle, McAuley opened the inner door of the hall and, Mr Keltie added, a shot was fired, the bullet going through McAuley’s right thigh.