SHOT IN THIGH

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21243, 14 October 1940, Page 6

SHOT IN THIGH

AFFAIR AT MEETING JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES BAYONET JAB IN HAND (By Telegraph-— Pr**s Association) DUNEDIN, Sunday There was a sensatoinal interruption at a meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses held in the Oddfellows’ Hall, Oamaru, tonight, as a result of which two men were wounded, one by a bayonet and the other by a rifle bullet. The injured men are:

Mr A. E. George Robert Edwards, of Timaru; bayonet wound in the hand. Mr Harry Frederick McAuley, of Timaru; bullet wound in the right thigh.

Mr McAuley lost a great deal of blood before first aid was applied and is on the dangerously ill list in hospital. William Meehan, of Oamaru, a married man with five children, a Power Board employee, 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 cf 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, Mr McAuley opened the inner door of the hall and, Mr Keltie added, a shot was fired, the bullet going through Mr McAuley’s right thigh.