The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-21
EXECUTIONER OF GORKY WILL BE LONDON BANDIT. Central Figure in Hounds ditch Murder, is Lenine's
 Gentle Aid. FLED FROM ENGLAND
 TO MEET RUSS KIN, Jake Peters a Fitting Tool to Garry Out Demands of
 Bolsheviks.

New York, Aug. 21-Jake Peters, | 'sEXecutioner of the Russian Revo- | lution." who is reported to have sign ed the order for the arrest and ex- ecution of Maxim GorlSy, was a cen tral figure in the Houndsditch mur- l ders in London in December 1910. | He was arrested at that time, but | was released on alibi establish ed through his close resemblance to an anarchist cousin, Fritz Svaar, who was killed during the battle that end- | ed in the arrest of members of the Houndsditch gang of thieves The Houndsditch murders, both be- | cause of their sheer coldbloodedness and because of the stiff battle that the perpetrators put up, aroused two continents.
 The Wanton HoUndsditch Murder.
 On the night of December 16, 1910, just before midnight, a constable | going through Houndsditch, a narrow thoroughfare on the edge of the IIon- | don Ghetto, was shot without warning by five men who were planning to rob the jewelry firm of H. S. Harris of a sum estimated at $1OO,0O0. The killing appeared to have been absolutely | wanton.
 The noise of the shooting aroused other policemen, who hurried up. In the pitched battle between the thieves and the policemen that resulted one police sergeant was killed outright another sergeant and a private died of wounds received in the engAge- ment and two other policemen were seriously wounded. Both legs of one l of them were broken
 The murderers were five in number. | One of them was shot in the fight | ana was found in house in | Whltechapel The house in which the pody was found was a veritable arse nal Explosives and materials for making them and various weapons were found in the place.
 The death of Gardstein narrowed the chase down to a hunt for four men and it was finally reduced to a pursuit of three: Fritz, Yourka and } Peter the Painter
 Peters Cousin Was Killed. The first named was Fritz Svaar. a . cousin of Jake Peters. On January 2. 1911, Svaar and a man supposed to be ; Peter the Painter were found in a house on Sidney Street, whitechapel
 They were asleep when the place was surrounded. The other tenants of the
 building were induced to leave quietly, ana the police by throwing pebbles against the window of the room oc- l them. Then began a desperate siege that lasted many hours.
 The two men opened fire on tba mo-
 lice, who were armed with revo1vers ana rifles. They retaliated but made hIue headway. Both sides blazed away at each other necessarily all through the day and night. and at 1O:30 the following morning the Scots Guards were summoned from the rover of London. The firing was still gong on when Winston Churchill
 lnen Home Secretary, arrived. Half an hour after he had appeared m, the scene smoke began to pour from the windows of the besieged house. Not long afterward there was an ex
 pIoslon that blew out all the windows ana left the upper floors of the build Ing blazing. Thus ended the famoua Battle of Sidney Street"
 l Flremen forced the front door and gained entrance to extinguish tho
 blaze. Five fremen were injured bv a , falling wall. The only other casualty
 on the side of the authorities was a sergeant of the Scots Guard, who had
 a bullet in his leg.
 Bodies of Bandits Found.
 The two men who had held the no-
 lice and soldiers at bay, however.
 were found dead in the charred buiId- Ing One of the bodies was identi-
 ned as that of Svaar Whether the
 other really was Peter the Painter IS not known, for not long afterward
 letter was received purporting to
 come from him in which he said
 that he had not been responsible for
 any of the murders and had not
 peTlshed in the explosion and fire Four prisoners were tried at the : trial for burglary and conspiracy ' which followed. Of these only one ! Nina Vasilleva. in whose home the body of Gardstein was found. was convicted. She was sentenced to two years imprisonment The others drought up on charges were Jake Pe- tcrs, Dubof and Rosen.
 After being acquitted Peters con-
 tlnued to serve as a presser for a firm
 or wholesale dealers in North Lon
 don by whom he was first employed
 Tn 1909. He remained with then,
 until April, 1917. On May l of that year the London Russia delegate committee sent him to the Bolshevik : Foreign Office in Russia. From Il [ post there he rose to the head of the committee to suppress counter revolutions.