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Taihape Daily Times, 30 September 1919, Page 3

“We get very sick of the tragedy we come across in criminal work,” ‘re’marked Superintendent Kiely, of Auckland, i.n his reminisce-no of police duty in the early days. “Apart from the most thrilling cases, what We like to reinember inost is the humorous side of the cases we come. across. I think the finest exepriences I have had have been with the vagaries of men in the d.t’s.' In my first few months in the police oflice I came across an old chap who got into the d.t,’s. about once every six months, but the fits didn’t last long_ He was living in a where on the outskirts of the town, and had a mania for collecting half—sovereigns, which he kept-in a matchbox. After one of his tantrums, he reported that his matchbox of halt"-sovereigns had been stolen. and we had an awful job sEnl‘chillg and suspecting one person after another without getting a trace. of the stolen gold. About nine months later the old chap got into another of his tantrums, and one day he was sitting‘ in the bar of the George Hotel, when -he suddenly woke up, looking: around, and said, “By Gad, I remember where I put those half-soverei'gns.” He went straight to his whare ,dug up a brick in the floor, and found the matehbox of gold where had had put it when he was in the d.l':’s. nine months proviously_ ‘