“MADE TO ORDER."

Hokitika Guardian, 14 November 1931, Page 6

“MADE TO ORDER."

EASY CONDITIONS-FOR THIEF

DOG TOLD TO RE QUIET

AUCKLAND, Nov. 11. Audacity, coupled with luck, enabled a thief, believed to be Slippeiy Sam” to steal £6 in notes and a few shilling from a house in New North Road in the early hours of Saturday morning. As usual, he enteied the house, the back door of which was not locked, went into the lighted bedroom where the husband and wife were asleep, took the wife’s purse from under her pjHow, removed the husband’s suit from the wardrobe, and then; sat at the kitchen while he emptied the purse, and took from an inside pocket of the coat £2 los. Then- he departed, leaving the back door wide open and the i front door slightly ajar. And while he was in the house a spaniel in a back roam growled 'but was told by the owner to “lie down”.

The man of the house, in order to start work at six o’clock at Devonport, had 'to rise about 3.30 on Saturday morning. Dv an oversight he had dropped off to sleep on Friday night without switching off the electric light in the bedroom. Waking when an alarm clock went off, he got tip and looked for his trousers, which he knew he had thrown over the foot of the bed. They were not tlieie. “Where’s my pants?” he asked his wife. She replied that they were at the end of the bed. “No, they are not; come on, where are they? I’ll miss my boat,” he said. Then the name “Slippery Sam” flashed through the mind of the wife, and, lifting her pillow she "saw that her purse was gone. Stepping out of the bedroom into the passage, they saw the front door partly open. In the kitchen on the table was the purse, with the contents emptied, out, and on the floor the husband found his trousers, coat and vest. His watch and chain were in the vest, but £2 15s, which had been in one of the coat pockets, was gone. Roth the man and his wife are now convinced that “Slippery Sam” was hi the house hours before lie committed'the theft, and this is borne out by >he story of one of their two sons. The lad came home on Friday night about nine o’clock and wa s walking down the pathway at the side of the .house 'when he saw the curtain in the sitting room move. Thinking it was his dog, he whistled, but to his surprise the dog came dashing from the street. ’Tire lad then felt alarmed, md'did not go inside, but went to meet his brother who was then working. Tn the meantime his parents arrived home and went to bed, and later the two hoys also came in. About two o’clock in the morning the dog, then in the hoys rom, growled, and was immediately told to

“]io down”. An obedient dog, he did as he was told, and the thief must have smiled to himself, for with the household asleep, the dog instructed to be quiet, and the light in the bedroom to guide him, he had everything made to order.