DAYLIGHT ROBBERY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1984, 31 May 1919, Page 4

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY.

FOOTPADS IN MELBOURNE.

In broad daylight, and within thirty yards of his office at the Zoological Gardens at Royal Park, Melbourne, Mr Dudley De Soucf, the curator, was attacked by two footpads, blindfolded with a hessian bag, stunned with a leaden “life preserver,” and robbed of nearly £IOO, which was to be paid in wages to the staff. Planned with care, and executed with amazing audacity, the purpose of the assailants was effected within thirty seconds, and the two men escaped by dashing through the grounds of the curator’s dwelling.

As has been the case in several instances of a similar character in Melbourne within the past two years, the robbers seem to ‘ have made themselves thoroughly conversant with the movements on pay day of the man singled out for attack. There was certainly no hesitation displayed, and the time ol Mr Le Sonet’s return from the bank with the money was judged with remarkable accuracy- lor some considerable time it has been his practice to drive to the Bank of Victoria in Collins Street in a waggonette to draw the wages the staff employed at the gardens. He was in the habit of leaving his home at a fixed time every Friday. The wagonette in which were Mr Le Souef and Mr Arthur Parsons, a returned soldier, who is employed at the gardens as groom, left the bank shortly after half-past eleven o'clock, and a few minutes before 12 drew up outside the gate, Mr Le Soucf alighted from the vehicle and walked towards the gate, while Mr Parsons drove the wagonette on to the main entrance. The curator was carrying £B3 in two canvas bags,in an inside breast pocket, and in addition held in his hand a gladstone bag. Parsons drove on, and 300 yards from the gate passed a curl being driven by Henry Men her, one of Ibe park rangers. When Meaker opened the gate which Mr Le Souef had passed through nut live minutes previously he noticed a hessian bag with attached cords lying on the path, also the ransacked gladstone bag, and close by a very formidable “life preserver had boon hurriedly thrown down. In addition there were blood stains on the ground and every indication of a sharp struggle having taken place.

Almost at the same moment a woman clerk employed in the office vent to the door to ascertain if Mr Le Souef had returned, and was in lime to see him birching along a path skirling a tennis-court, with blood si reaming from wounds about his head ami staining Ids clothes. Lying on a couch, with great patches of antiseptic plaster covering several gashes 111 his head, Mr Le Souef related what happened when he pushed open the gate. He had no sooner taken two steps inside the fence than a young man sprang

upon him, and enveloped bis head in a kind of hessian hood, which was drawn tight about his nock with

curds. Simultaneously the leaden

life preserver, wielded with murderous force by the other man. descended on his head, and, as he reeled under the combined onslaught, Mr Le Souef says he was dealt

three more violent blows about the head, and was badly stunned. The gladstone bag was snatched from his hand, but on lining found to contain only business papers was Hung down by one of his assailants with an oath. With great rapidity the injured man’s pockets were rilled, and the cash bags located. A strong cord was then passed round his arms by one of flic men, and, unable to cry for help owing to the suffocating bag about his mouth, he was rendered helpless. “Thai’ll do; we’ve cleared him out,” hissed one of his attackers, in a half whisper, and (lie two men, who. from the lleelipg glimpse he had of them, Mr Le Souef believes, are little more (ban youths, clambered through a fence, and escaped.