MURDER GANGS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16324, 13 January 1921, Page 2

MURDER GANGS.

DUBLIN’S GHASTLY SUNDAY. COLD-BLOODED BUTQHERY, [From Our Correspondent.] I .ON DON. November 24. Sunday's ghastly events in Dublin make one wonder what is to happen next. AYe in England were all hoping that the epidemic ol atrocity had nearly exhausted its virulence, and that the rule, of terror over the Irish themselves was about to be broken. And now comes awful evidence that the murder organisation which has so horribly fouled the name and cause of Sinn Fein is capable oi even viler atrocities than the scores of coldblooded murders which have marked the activities of the extremists of Ireland’s republicans dining the past year. What must raise the gorge of auy reader of the accounts of these latest crimes is the evidence of a depth of spiritual degradation which even in deliberate; murder is not always present, and of which the murderer who claims to he a “ political” assassin generally claims to be free. The slaughtering of men before the eyes of their wives, the riddling of the corpses with bullets, is nothing more nor less than sheer hooliganism under the influence ot the lust for blood. That is not Ireland, h is not the spirit of the men whom Nationalist Ireland honours as its martyrs, hut the very reverse. This is so e 7 ideut that oven such events as these, and the crimes that preceded them, cannot crush the hope of settlement or enfeeble the efforts now being made to further it. When all is known it may be. proved that the deeds of last Sunday were done with the deliberate aim i of destroying that hope. Tilings have happened lately, and in particular the decision of the Irish Labour Conference not to pledge itself for 7'opublicanism and total separation, which nvtnv believed to point the way to a political solution at last. Tf the murder gang had meant to ruin that prospect. Hi**v could have done nothing uetter ca!ulated to achieve that object. the official account of Sunday's murders loses nothing of its horrors by reason of its severely plain language and entire avoidance of ‘ purple passages.” Describing the sheeting of Captain Newbury, court-martial officer, who lived with his wife at 92, Dower Bagot Street. Dublin, the account, states that a party of raiders, numbering a dozen, were lei in by the landlady, who rushed upstairs in terror, and saw nothing of the subsequent happening. The men knocked at Captain Newbury’s doer, Mrs Newbury opened it, and seeing a crowd oi' armed men. slammed tho door in their faces and locked it. The men burst open the door, but Captain apd Mrs Newbury escaped to an inner room. Together Captain Newbury and liis wife tried to hold the door against the intruders. They had almost succeeded in shutting it. when a man fired through the door, wounding Captain Newbury, who. though spitting blood, got to the window.

opened it. and was half way out when the murderers burst into the room. Mrs Newbury flung herself in their wav, but they pushed her aside and fired shots into Captain Newbury’s body. The police found the body lying halfway out of Hie window, covered with a blanket, which Mi's Newbury bad placed over it. It was significant that the murderers in this case., as in two or throe others, made a diligent search for papers, hoping, no doubt, to find documents or evidence on which military law officers were working. TRAGEDY IN EVERY ROOM. The residence of Airs Gray, at 28, I pper Pembroke Street, was raided by about twenty men. Two officers were murdered and four wounded. The house consisted of several flats- Raiders, armed and disguised, held up a maid and Mrß Gray. They broke up into parties and went to various parts of the premises. Ten or twelve shots were heard and the assassins decamped. Mrs Gray and her maid visited the rooms immediately, and found Major Dowling, Grenadier Guards, bad been shot dead at his bedroom door, and Captain lb-ice. of the Royal Engineers, was found dead in his room next door. Captain Kenlvsidc, Lancashire Fusiliers, whose wife most gallantly struggled with the murderers, and thereby frustrated their purpose, was wounded in the arm. Colonel Woodcock was fired at as he came downstairs. He called out to Colonel Montgomery, who, coming out of his room, was wounded in the body. Turning towards his room to secure a weapon. Colonel Woodcock was also wounded. Colonel Woodcock and Colonel Montgomery both belong to tho Lancashire Fusiliers. A sixth officer, Mr Murray, of the Royal Scots, was also wounded as lie descended tho stairs. A lady resident in the house went from room to room seeking help, and in every room found only dead, dying or wounded men. At 38, Upper Mount Street., two murders were committed. The house was entered soon after 9 a.m. by twenty armed, unmasked men, lot in bv a servant. who'unwillingly pointed out the rooms oecui>ied by Lieutenant Ames, of the Grenadier Guards, and Lieutenant Bonnet, of the R.A.S.C. Motor Transport. The maid then rushed upstairs and told an officer, who was sleeping I on an upper floor, and another lodger, I that murder was being done downl stairs. A fusillade of shots was heard. M hen the two men came downstairs they found two bodies in pools of blood in Ames’s bedroom. Bonnet had evidently been dragged from his bedroom into his brother officers’ room, where both were shot, their bodies lying side by side At the Gresham Hotel. Sackviilo Street, a party of fifteen to twenty men entered the open door of the hotel, held up the hoots and head porter by revolvers, forced tbe latter to lead them to t he rooms occupied - by ex-Captain Patrick M’Cormack, Armv Veterinary Corps, and Lieutenant Wilde. One of the men, who carried a huge hammer, knocked at the room occupied by Wilde. Wilde opened the door, and three shots were fired into his chest simultaneously. The party then repaired to M’Cormack’s room, and found him sitting up m bed leading a paper. Without a word five shots were fired into bis body and head as he sat. there. The bed was saturated with blood, and the body, especially the head, was horribly disfigured as though the hammer was used to finish off the victim. At 119, Lower Bagot Street, the raid was carried out, and Captain Baggalav, court martial officer, was shot dead, hut no witness was available to describe ! the circumstances. Captain Baggalay had lost a leg in the war, and had been employed as prosecutor under ■ the Restoration of Order in Ireland Regulations. One officer and two civilians were murdered at 117. Morehampton Road. Just before nine o’clock a party of armed men knocked at tho door, and it was opened by th 2 ten-year-old son of Mr Smith, the householder. The men rushed into the house and dragged from their rooms Mr Smith and Captain M’Leau. who were in bed with their wives, and took them into a spare bedroom. Mr Caldow, brother of Mrs M’Lean, was thrust in beside them, and all three were shot in cold blood, M’Lan and Smith being 5, killed, and Caldow seriously wounded. Both Mrs Smith and Mrs M’Leau were in the house when their husbands were murdered, and the assassins dragged their victims to the spare room to murder them, as Captain M’Lean, when overpowered, implored them not to murder him under his wife's eves. 011 completing their dastardly work the murderers disappeared. At 28, Erlsiwrt Terrace, the mur-

dererfc’ leader rang the hr 11 and asked the maid for Colonel Fitzpatrick, but she showed them the bedroom of Captain Fitzgerald. The leader entered Fitzgerald’s room and the maid heard four" shots fired in rapid succession. The police found the officer in bed in a pool of blood with his forehead _ shattered with bullets, another bullet through the heart, and one through the wrist. Captain Fitzgerald, who was recently cnmloyed as defence officer of the police barracks at Clare, was there kidnapped bv men of the Republican Armv, who tried to shoot him with his own revolver, which miraculously missed fire. They then twisted his arm until it was dislocated, dragged him to a field propped him up against a. well, and fired at him. He leapt over the wall and escaped, and had come to Dublin for surgical treatment for his arm. Ho had been out of hospital only a few days before he was assassinated. At 22. bower Mount Street, a maid opened the loor and twenty men rushed in and demanded to know the whereabouts of the bedrooms of Air Mahon and Air Reel. Mahon’s room was pointed out, and on entering they fired five shots at a few inches range, killing Mahon outright. At the same time others attempted to enter Peel's room. The door was locked, and seventeen shots were fired through the panels, but Reel escaped uninjured. Meanwhile another servant, hearing the shots, shouted from an upper window to a party oi officers of the Auxiliary Division, R.l.C.—who were passing. These officers at once attached the house, after dispatching two of their number—Cadbts Morris and Garnis—to their depot for reinforcements. They chased the assassins through tho house and captured one, whom their fire had wounded, and three others, all of whom were armed. Reinforcements on arrival were asked ! the whereabouts of Morris and Garnis. i They replied, li We know nothing.” They never arrived at the depot. We came because we heard firing.” On a search being made the bodies of At orris and Garnis were found lying in a neighbouring garden. Apparently they had been intercepted by tho murderers' pickets and shot. It is officially stated that tho deaths numbered fourteen, and five persons were wounded. One Sinn Feiner was injured and four prisoners taken. Investigations " have established pretty clearly that there must have been at least two hundred men engaged in Sunday morning’s murders. The gangs who visited the houses and hotels certainly numbered a hundred and fifty, and there were possibly another fifty posted as pickets outside the places where the crimes were committed. It seems clear, too, that there were at least a dozen gangs at work simultanously, for oilier addresses were raided in addition to those where the officers were done to death.