PURSE-SNATCHERS ABOUT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3162, 14 August 1917, Page 4

PURSE-SNATCHERS ABOUT

SERIES OF LOSSES. There is a clever purse-snatcb,er at work at tramway junctions in 'Wellington. During the last fortnight some, substantial amounls havo Iwen lost by ladles from their bags, through thwr purees lmvm? been stolen. It is fashionable now for ladies to carry their purees either loose or in a special pocket •within a handbag, and the thief has only to i>rcs3 the spring to open the bag, and the purse ia exposed to view, and thon, selecting the proper opportunity amidst the bustle of a "car arrival or departure, he "dips in" and "gets away with the goods." . . ■ . Three ladies are lamenting serious losses in this way, and in each case the loss has lwen discovered after leaving the busy Courtenay Place junction. A lady named Mre. V,. Redstone losti a nurse containing JC11; another, Mrs. ■Richards, lost her purs? with a little money in it, but the thief had missed a roll of iio.toa lying beside the purse.' Jtrs. I;. Leese also had her l>as picked of its pure© a few days ago. at the. same Not long ago a man left a well-loaded brief bag for a rnoment on the pavement at the same stopping-place, and actually told a friend to Iceen tui eye ov it. Aft"r three minutes' absence he returned to find the bag missine and the friendly eye engaged in reading a newspaper. There nre evidently Borne littht-fingwed people at work Tvhero the crowds are thickest, and the public are warned to talw the greatest care of their, valuables, I particularly when they are contained in 'n purse within a. bag , , for t' le Jatter is really more a protection to the thief than to its owner.