MAN WITH A MONKEY’S POUCH.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1928, Page 1

MAN WITH A MONKEY’S POUCH.

(By COL. AUBREY O’BRIEN, C.1.E., C.8.E., A former Magistrate in India.) The Indian thief will often create a pocket in his throat in which hi can conceal articles of value and thus avoid being caught with the stolen goods. ' To obtain such a valuable hidingplace the rogue of experience obtains a heavy circular weight of lead, attached to a string five inches in length and knotted at the end. The lead may be an inch in diameter and nearly half an inch thick. This weight is lowered into the gullet and prevented from slipping by the knot at the end of the string, which is passed between two teeth of the lower jaw. The action is slow, hut at the expense of much septic ulceration of the tnroat, the rascal becomes tbe proud possessor of a pouch within the soft part of the gullet. Once created, the pouch can serve many purposes. Small articles of value like rings and precious stones can be picked up and disposed of immediately with the certainty that no ordinary search, however instant or rigorous, will reveal anything. On one occasion a thief was arrested with five sovereigns, which had been seized in his hand in the very ’act of theft. The village constable escorted him to the police station and handed him over to another man there to take to court.

’When certain formalities had been completed, the second constable prepared to take over charge of the prisoner and the money, but the sovereigns had disappeared from the desk on which they had been laid. Recriminations followed, each constable thinking the other had the money. Fortunately there arrived a clever superintendent well versed in the wiles of criminals. Suddenly he clapped his hand on the prisoner’s throat.

“ Up they come, you rascal,” was the crisp order, and five sovereigns were brought up again to light. Tbe pouch is also of special value to prisoners for hiding little luxuries like opium. Like many good things denounced by fanatical reformers who see only the evils of excess, opium in moderation has valuable medicinal qualities. Even on a small scale its hold is stronger than that of tobacco or alcohol. This is why old hands love to create a pocket in their throats to avoid being deprived of their favourite drug.

Almost the whole of the American merchant marine is fostered by subsidy from its Government, while British" lines must run on their own or go under. One subsidised line operates regularly from the Pacific Slope to New Zealand and is free to trade between port and port in the Dominion unrestricted by the laws which are applied to our own shipping. Its ships come here Widened below the Plimsoll mark and carry deck cargoes which we do not allow our own ships to carry —cargoes of timber piled high to the bridge-—and they urn permitted to load here for Australian ports, while no Bri ish ship from New Zealand to San Francisco would be allowed to pick up one ounce of cargo at Honolulu ! Here is cliscrimintion. indeed; but it is very doubtful whether there is any protest against it in tbe American Shipping Board’s report. New Zealand should supply tlio deficiency.—Christchurch “Sun.”