A Lucky Discovery.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 193, 20 January 1905, Page 2

A Lucky Discovery.

Interest in the eeusatioQal robbery of gold from the strong-room of the P. and O. mail steamer Avoca, while voyaging between Sydney and Melbourne, in August, 1878. when a bos of 5000 sovereigns was stolen, hre been revived. A few days ago a resident of Inverloch, Victoria, while . chopping a hollow log tor firewood, came across a parcel of 75 sovereigns neatly tied up, and this is believed to indicate that more parcels of a simiiav ' nature have been hidden in the saoM . vicinity. The history of the case if interesting. The gold belonged to ths Oriental Bank, and the loss was not | discovered until the Avoca rsaohir l : Melbourne. Suspicion toll on the chief officer of the vessel, who was shadowed by detectives in all parte of the world, bat who escaped arrest by a circumstance which threw the suspicion on the steward of the steamship Avoca, and who was * found to be spending money freely. Weiberg was arrested, and to the crime. He undertook co * show the detectives where the M plant"* was. Detective Mahoney went with the prisoner to the Tarwin river, but while Mahoney was stooping down Weiberg kicked him in the stomach and escaped. For a long time he evaded the police, but at last ho was apprehended after a pistol duel with a constable near Anderson's Intel. He was sentenced to a term of im|>riooament, on the expiration of which ho returned to Gippsland, where ho was supposed to have been drowned in a storm at Anderson's Inlet. Woodchopping near Inverness has arecmed proportions of considerable magoi taste since the discovery of the £75.