A CONTEMPTIBLE ACTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17282, 25 September 1916, Page 4

A CONTEMPTIBLE ACTION.

DEAD SOLDIER'S SOUVENIRS STOLEN.

The circumstances surrounding a particularly mean theft have been brought" under the- notico of a "Lyttelton Tinic&" representative. It appears' that souio time ago a gentleman in Christchurch dispatched through a carrying agency a box containing the personal belongings of a soldier who was killed at Gallipoli to his mother, a resident in Great Britain. Tho box contained, among other things, a case of pipes, a safety razor, a pocket watch and a silvcf cigarette case, the whole being enclosed in a small writing desk. Beforo dispatching to his sorrowing relative the souvenirs of her dead son, the sender had a box specially made to hold the articles, and naturally he thought that he had taken every care to ensure that they should reach their destination safe and sound. A few days ago a letter was received from the mother, in which she said in part: "Just as I had given up hope of the box, and thought it another of the many things sent to the bottom of the sea, I gob a letter from London from the carrying agents, advising mo of its arrival, and saying that, on being opened for Customs examination, it was found that the desk had beon forced." The letter went on to say that the contents were missing, while the desk had been badly smashed in the < proses* of ar/eninp.