STEALING STATUTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 98, 11 September 1912, Page 5

STEALING STATUTES.

PAR LIAMENTARY MESSENGER ARRESTED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Prior to the departure of the steamer AUia l'or Suva to-day, Detectives Hammond and Quartermairi arrested a man named Cuarles Fish on a charge of absconding from bail at Wellington. He i was brought before the Police Court later J in the day, and remanded to appear at j Wellington next Tuesday. The original j charge upon which he appeared at Wel--1 lington, when he was remanded and allowed bail, was that of stealing from J Parliament Buildings, Wellington, a num- ] ber of volumes of consolidated statutes, of the total value of about £IOO. Fish I was employed as library messenger for about eleven years, and it is alleged that, when the statutes were consolidated in 11)08 and the new volumes were in genera] demand, lie stole them at intervals and sold them to secondhand book dealers, who in turn re-sold them to solicitors and those requiring them. A number of the missing volumes have been recovered, some of them being found in Auckland, Hamilton and other places. When arrested, Fisli had a ticket for Suva in his possession, in the name of W. C. Watkins, also a large sum of money.