INDIAN THIEVES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1088, 31 October 1883, Page 4

INDIAN THIEVES.

The adroitness of Hindoo burglars is almost proverbial. A correspondent of the Madras Mail raises a loud wail from the Cochin district, where nothing seems secure from these expert thieves. He says:—Mr Ferguson, Superintendent of the Travancore Police, landed at Cochin a few days since, and being a stranger to the place put at the Travellers’ Bungalow. Thieves are always on the rampage at Cochin, and they are no respecters of person. Who is a superintendent of police to a Cochin thief? In gaol, a guardian; in the Travellers’ Bungalow, which has been periodically robbed like every other dwelling at Cochin for many years past, only another victim on whom to keep pi practice his predatory habits. At $0.30 p.m., the leading protector of the ipublic peace in Travancore reposes peacefully in a room of the Travellers’ Bungalow. Who dare approach ? A revolver is under his pillow/a light is in the bungalow, and at his bedside a chair on which is a box of matches. Under his bed is a box containing what is most valuable to the slumberer. The night is not far spent, only far enough to admit of another attempt to show the Cochin thiel’s agility. Quietly he enters the the bungalow. He may have drugged his patient, for he so sure of his game that he goes deliberately to the chair by the bedside and takes the box of matches. Whether he lights a match in the room or not is not stated; but he succeeds in taking away the box from under the bed, another box more conveniently placed, and the veryi clothes his victim had but so recelftTy taken off. The boxes are well examined, what is valuable in them is abstracted, and the clothes which are considered of no value, after a chain at the bottom of the trousers has been taken off, because it looked like silver are thrown out in the compound along with the boots and spurs. Not a sound is heard ! The robbery is as cottiplete as many others which are so frequently alluded to by similar sufferers, all resident at Cochin, without the slightest hope of safety. Strange, but too true ! In a civilised town, under British Government, where taxes are regularly demanded and paid, where justices of the peace about five in number, a magistrate or deputy magistrate, an inspector of police, and a body of police do dwell,, robberies continually occur without detection, and there is difficulty in finding a European in the place whohhas. not been robbed, and disgusted with the mortification of knowing that he has no remedy. Within a month or two a resident was robbed of jewellery worth about Rs. 1,500. By the strenuous efforts of the police, a case was made out against two of his servants, who were sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment. Of as usual, the stolen property was not recovered. The prisoners were removed to the Central Gaol. They appealed to the District Judge at Calioft, and they are now reported to be out on bail. Can nothing be done , for this unfortunate little station? The'police have recently been reorganised, the did inspector removed, and a smart man put in his place, but still there, is the cry of robbers. The tahsildar .was robbed the other day in Native Cochin, but he uttered no bad words, he felt so ashamed, and thought so much of his dignity that he suffered his loss in silence. The reverend

schoolmaster at Ernacolum has had the chairs stolen out of his sitting-room. What can be done? These robberies will lead to murder if not checked. In

self-preservation the residents at Cochin will be obliged to take the law into their awn bands* lay traps for thejtheives and shoot them.”