REMARKABLE CRIMINAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1639, 28 December 1905, Page 3

REMARKABLE CRIMINAL.

A criminal named Gifford, with a remarkable career, was sentenced at the Wellington Supreme Court the other day to six years’ imprisonment on a number of charges of breaking and entering. Gifford (says the New Zealand Times) was a busy man. There was nothing of the common sneak-thief about him. In a room he had occupied in Hill-street for one night only was found stolen property valued at about Gathering jewellery was his chief delight, but his hand did not hesitate to reach for almost any article of value. The police station looked something like a fancy-goods warehouse or a pawnshop when tho police had obtained the property taken by the burglar. There was jewellery galore, a colonel’s uniform, [silver-backed hair brushes, opera-glasses, silver goods, plumber’s tools, carpenter’s tools, gasfitter’s tools, a bicycle, and 3uudry articles that might have afforded [material for an auctioneer’s advertisement. In passing sentence, the Chief Justice said the prisoner had made himself liable to an aggregate of 160 years’ imprisonment. Gifford is one of the cleverest, coolest, and most dangerous burglars that has ever been in this colony, and it is questionable if ever one man has committed single-handed so many serious offences in New Zealand. He is 35 years of age, a first-class plumber by trade, and has a wife and three children in Sydney. From official records, it appears that he commenced his life of crime as far back as 1890 in Australia, when he served a sentence for theft. Since then he has been in gaol seven times for offences ranging from tneft to housebreaking. He was liberated from Darlinghurst prison, Sydney, in February last, and came on to New Zealand. He started to make his presence felt at Wellington last January, when he stole jewellery, etc., from the dwelling of Mrs Seamer, of Wallace street, and from then until the date of his capture gave the police plenty of anxiety. Soon after his arrival in Wellington he obtained employment at the gasworks, and it was while engaged working at various city residences for the company that he made his plans for robberies studied entrances and exits, and so on. He seemed to have a preference for two-storey buildings, as nearly all the houses he robbed were so built. It mattered little to him whether there was a fire-escape or not, as he was as much at home climbing up and down a water-pipe as mounting or descending a ladder. He would, if disturbed in a house, lock the door of a room he was in, and escape through the window. He is a well educated man, of refined manner, a total abstainer. He dressed well, and was the possessor of a well-selected library. Although he trusted no man in his criminal work, ho had a weakness for the society of women, and had promised marriage to at least two young girls of respectable parentage in Wellington.