A Cool Robbery.

Manawatu Herald, 13 April 1893, Page 3

A Cool Robbery.

♦ j The Government are delighted at the " influx" that has set in to this colony, but it would appear that the question is open to cloubt. Less zeal and more discretion would be better. The N.Z. Times states that a theft of a particularly impudent character was perpetrated in the Savings Bank Department of the Post Office on Monday morning. A widow named Mrs Dawes, who resides in Binliam street, was at the counter filling up a paying-in slip for the sum of J2IG, When a well dressed man, who was also near the counter, leaned over and asked her how to make out a similar slip. Being disarmed by his gentlemanly appearance she showed him her own slip, and then turned away, upon which he must have taken up his slip upon whioh he had written the name * David Georga ' in a bold hand and then very cleverly doubled it up und dropped it on the floor. Mrs Dawes was just then going to sign her slip when the man chew her attention to the slip lying on the floor. Shy immediately stooped down to pick it up, and on rising found that both money and man were gone! Leaving the office as quickly as possible she saw the man disappear through the outside door, and go through the folding doors leading to the Customs Department. A number of people were in the vestibule at the time, and she shouted out 'That man has taken my money,' but none of them gave ■■■lier any assistance whatever. On reaching the top of the staircase she enquired in every room whether such a man had been seen, but without success, and then returned to the Post Office. There Mr Gould, stationmaster at the Wellington and Manawatu Railway station, informed her that he had seen the man take the money, but thought it was her husband, and then someone in the office said the man had just gone outside in the direction of the Pier Hotel. The supposition is that the individual in question hid behind the folding doors leading to the Customs while Mrs Dawes was going upstairs, and thus escaped observation. Up to a late hour on Tuesday night the thief was still at liberty.