GARROTTERS ABOUT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1367, 19 February 1912, Page 4

GARROTTERS ABOUT.

CITIZEN ASS.U'LTKI) NEAR POLICE STATION.

A somewhat alarming experience is related by Jlr. .1. Griffiths, pawn broker, of Courteimy Place, a man who has boon in business in Wellington for over fen years. Willi" strolling along Taranaki Place, opposite the King's Theatre on .Friday evening at a few minutes after !1 p.m. he heard footsteps approaching from behind but as there were a few people about and as he hod no cause to lear anything untoward, took no notice until he reached that dark spot opposite (he back of Mall's Turkish liaths. and within 30 yards of the Courtenay Place Police Station, when suddenly a man's arm was thrown rqund his throat, and another was thrown over his shoulder. Whilst thus held in a vice a second man fumbled at his watchchain, and getting impatient, wrenched it oil' and it broke.

"In Hie meantime (says Mr. Ciri flit lis) I was struggling violently, but could not call out owing to the pressure on my throat. The man who snatched my natch-chain made off. Attached to tho chain was a small aneroid barometer, worth, perhaps, about 30s. • I kept it on the right-hand end of the chain, whilst on the other end was a gold watch worth twciitT guineas, which the thieves missed. As the other man who had been holding me helpless from behind let go to join his confederate I swung round with my right fist and felled him to the ground, alter which we had a rough-and-tumble fight on the ground. 1 got him down and kept him down, and would have held him secure when the half-time crowd from the King's Theatre came out. Kot taking in the situation someone said: "Let the man up!" In reply I begged some of them to bring the police, stating that 1 had keen robbed. There wos a good deal ot confusion and argument and in the middle of it the man slipped away, lie loft his cap behind and took mine, confound him! I then went ami mtormeu the police of what had occurred. "1 gave them a rough time I can tell you!" said Mr. Griffiths, a man well advanced in vears, but thin and wiry. I gave tho man I had down a good kicking and would have given him more, only for the stupid crowd which could not grasp the situation. Evidently the men who stuck me up thought I was an old man who would not make any resistancc, but I managed to mark them both. Owing to the struggle having taken place in the dark I. would not be able I to recognise the ruffians again.