A BURGLARY.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 June 1926, Page 4

A BURGLARY.

COXTKXTS OF FAFF RKMOVRD

AUCKLAND. June 20. Blowing off the door of a safe with a charge of Gelignite, a burglar wlio entered tlie booking office of the Remuera railway station early on Saturday morning removed from Lite premises the drawers of the safe and their eontents. cheques and cash totalling £4O. of wliirfi CIS was in cash.

A large amount of explosive must have been used. The door of the safe was liadly mutilated, and the whole of file insulation was found next morning detached Irom the framework. The drawers o! the safe were afterwards found under a bridge about fifty yards from the station, hut the burglar.left none of the contents, though .these mainly comprised cheques, payment of which has been stopped, from timber companies. The remainder of the money in notes and silver consisted chiefly of wages for- surfacemen and station petty rash. The residents in houses at the hack of the station recollect having heard the sound of an explosion at about two o'clock on Saturday morning, but they attributed it to the noise of a puncture in a motor tyre. There is no direct substantiation of a theory at first held, suggested by the extent of the explosion, that two charges were used in bursting open the safe. The quantity that must have'been applied to effect the damage with one charge has led investigators to think that the handiwork was that of an amateur.

Circumstances helped in the success of the crime. With the railway lines on either side and the nearest residences some distance away, the station is comparatively isolated, and quite deserted tor a good part of the night. r ilie staff left at ten o’clock on Friday night, and there was no one on duty until six o'clock the following morning. When Mr Frank Gotland, a porter, who came on duty at that hour on Saturday, arrived at the station, he found two lower panes of the booking office window broken. The holes were about a foot long, and had obviously been used by the intruder to gain access to the catch. The window had been pushed well up, allowing plenty of space to enter the room. Another indication of the force of the explosion was that the window was firmly jammed. "[evidently an unsuccessful attempt had been made to enter the station from a window at the rear of the building, ns this was also found with two panes similarly smashed.