The Sidney Street Affair in its Medico-Legal Aspect

I PROPOSE to submit to you the facts of the Sidney Street siegenot as described in the periodicals at the time, but rather as they were sworn to, at the subsequent inquiry, by the police-officers, the lay witnesses, and myself. We will begin with a chronological resume, and then consider such of the events as seem to offer interest or instruction. About midnight on the znd January 191 I it came to the knowledge of the superintendent of the H Division of the Metropolitan Police that two men wanted for the Houndsditch murders had taken refuge in the house, No. 100 Sidney Street. They were known by the names Joseph and Fritz; the latter only, sometimes indulged in a surname, which was Svaars. They were further known to be desperate, determined, and armed with long-range weapons. Fritz was the tenant of the house to which Gardstein, who was shot in the Houndsditch affair, was taken, and in which he died. The superintendent believed the arrest could not be effected without drawing a large number of the general public, and therefore" detailed 30 or 40, subsequently increased to 300 or 400, police to deal with the crowd." By 2 a.m. the house was surrounded, and steps were taken to get the innocent occupants