BURGLARY "BOOM."

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3542, 2 August 1920, Page 2

BURGLARY "BOOM."

Burglary insurance companies in , the United Kingdom are very hard bit at the present time. The whole of burglary underwriting in respect cf commercial premises. private dwelling-houses, and personal property is in a difficult position, as the number of robberies of ail kinds is the greatest ever known, and the amount of the claims unprecedented. The war has largely increased the number of criminals, according 10 an official of a leading insurance company. "If you wanted a stove or a saucepan at the front.■" he said to a representative of the Times, "you rarely went through the long process of asking for it. but purloined it fvom these who had it. The moral deterrent to disbonesty was absent; it was considered 'the thing 7 to do. Many of these people who have learned to 'win' things—as the soldiers described it —easily at the front, have returned with a perverted sense cf meum and*" tuum, and an objection to working, "They do not go in for ordinary burglary, but for flat breaking, which is a specialised and popular form of burglary. "The lack of domestic servants has had a most injurious effect on the position of the insurance companies, as the flat-breaker always waits until the occupants are absent. The only thing that the householder can do is to piit as many difficulties in his way as possible."