LOCAL HOTEL ROBBERIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2991, 28 January 1926, Page 2

LOCAL HOTEL ROBBERIES.

TWO HOTELS ENTERED,

On Tuesday night Foxton was visited by burglars and as a result boarders at two of the local hotels are now poorer by the loss of the contents of their wallets. The method of working the hotels was identical with that adopted in recent hotel burglaries in Hamilton, Marton and Levin and suggests that expert thieves are on the job. It appears as though a start was made on the Family Hotel, where the thieves met with little success, the licensee (Mr. McMullian) being the heaviest looser sustaining a loss of £3. Besides the licensee’s, rooms 17 and 18 were entered and boarders clothes removed to the bathroom where they were systematically gone through and relieved of any loose cash. Nothing else was touched. Mr. Mc-Mullian’s wallet was subsequently found in the water jug of a bedroom. From the Family Hotel the thieves cvently went to Whyte’s Hotel and here met with hardly better results. Rooms 3,5, and 7 were entered and boarders clothes removed to a vacant room across the corridor, where they were gone through. Here again papers of no use to the light lingered gentry were deposited in the water jug. There were also signs that an entrance had been made into Walls’ boardinghouse via the fire escape from Whyte’s Hotel, but it is presumed that the alarm clock which was set for 3.30 a.m. to call the bakehouse workers disturbed the marauders, who immediately decamped.

Had the thieves chosen the even numbers at Whyte’s Hotel, instead of Ihe odd ones, it is possible that they would have met with more success. The hoarder in room 4 had in l_he pocket of his coat, hanging over a chair near the door, £lB in notes and the orcupant of room 6 had a considerable amount of money lying on the dressing table of his room in his tobacco pouch. At the Family Hotel the thieves overlooked the keys of the safe which were in a conspicuous place, and fortunately for the licensee, they thereby missed a substantial haul.

It is evident that the thieves took no unnecessary risks in their exploits. The time of the raids was between the hours of 12.30 and 3.30 a.in., as one of the boarders who suffered loss in Whyte’s hotel did not go to his room until 12.15. It is thought that the gang arrived in town about 12.30 a.m. by motor car and left again immediately they had ransacked the two hotels.

The police were communicated with and are making investigations.