CRACKSMEN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1444, 20 May 1912, Page 4

CRACKSMEN.

BOT.JI GANG NOW AT WORK,

(By TeleEraph-FroM Annotation,;

Auckland, May 18. The burgl.iry epidemic, which has disturbed tho city and suburbs of Auckland during recent weeks, extended to tho vicinity of Stanley Street, J'arnell, last night, when tho ollico of the Waiwai Mineral Wnlpr Company was enteral by some person or portions with designs on tho sale. They left without accomplishing those, designs, having apparently been disturbed.

This makes about the fifteenth attemptat housebreaking in Auckland during the last t'.no months, and recalls a previous occasion on which d gang of cracksmen ivero operating in Auckland. This was ten years ago, when tho Hamuiy gang successfully carried through a dozen or more burglaries in the city.

Jfiunsiiy was clover, an electrical engineer, and was tho leader of a bund of five (including a woman) whom tho po.'ico felt convinced wore tin; perpetrators of tho .series of burglaries, but who were linablo to effect n capture. All tho polico bents were doubled, and it was an anxious tinso for tho authorities, particularly when an attempt was mado to rob a safo 'in one of Dm bip institutions of tho city of .£7OO. On that occasion the attempt to explode tho snfo resulted in tho handle be!ng blown right out, which meant that the !>olts could not be shot back, and so the haul was missed. Ultimately tho police locked iho Hiifipects up on n charge of vagrancy, and, three mouths Inter, uj/on i-ncir release, they mado for Wellington, where a further series of undetected burglaries was perpetrated. When they commenced operating in Christchure.h, however, the gang wa.s caught red-handed, and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Tho leader, Ramsay. on his release went to Dunedin, and there made a murderous attack on a bank clerk, for which he received a sentence of ten years, and in connection with which ho is still in durauco.