“The Press” In 1866

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31111, 14 July 1966, Page 14

“The Press” In 1866

July 14 ENCOURAGING CRIME.—Few towns of the same wealth and population as Christchurch lie more at the mercy of a practised burglar. The houses are irregularly built, in some places at considerable intervals; they are mostly of wood, and there is generally some window or slightly constructed back door which seems intended as much to facilitate as to prevent ingress. Besides this, the citizens, emboldened by long impunity, have contracted a careless reprehensible habit of leaving valuable goods exposed or most insufficiently protected, serving as a very lure to robbery. We happen to know that a police officer, qf great knowledge of his

profession both in London and the Australian colonies, on visiting Christchurch, expressed the utmost surprise at the imperfect manner in which shops containing valuables and costly merchandise were guarded by the proprietors, and declared his belief that a party of smart London burglars could rob the whole town in a night In the outskirts and environs of the town beyond the beat of the police, the means of protection are still less. The houses are less contiguous and more assailable. In fact the only safeguard to be relied on is a certainty that the house contains nothing which in the experienced judgment of a professed burglar would make it worth while to run the of alarm and capture. ,