BURGLARS RAID VICARAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 165, 3 October 1927, Page 12

BURGLARS RAID VICARAGE

DRINK WHISKY AND STEAL PLATE After drinking a bottle of whisky, a syphon of soda water and a bottle of port, and eating a leg of lamb and some apples, in addition to smoking the vicar’s cigarettes, burglars took silver articles to the value of £2OO from St. Paul’s Vicarage, East Molesey, Surrey. With the exception of the household plate, every silver article was taken, including a private communion set given to the vicar, the Rev. Hugh McMullan, by his father-in-law, Mr. J. Anderson, of Highgate, at his ordination. In. addition £l7 in money was removed from the vicar’s wallet and from the parish boys’ club box and the advance proceeds of a fete to be held in aid of the church next Saturday. The fete prizes, in another room, were not touched, although one consisted of a case of silver knives. A cigar and cigarette-box and a silver salver bearing the crests of the 2nd Lancs Fusiliers and the King’s Liverpool Regiment, which were given by the officers as a wedding present to the vicar when he was serving during the war, were taken, but his war medals were left. The thieves also entered the church and bent a brass cross in an ineffectual attempt to force the safe containing the church plate. Mrs. Seward, the occupier of a cottage a short distance from the vicarage, states that hearing the sound of a motor-car being started, she saw out of her bedroom window a car being driven away. Two or three men and a woman were in it. Discussing the burglary, Mr. McMullan said: “I felt very uneasy last night. Somehow I thought: that everything was not right -with the church, so about 11.30 p.m. I w*ent across to see. There was nothing amiss. I did not so to bgd until after *