ACROBATIC BURGLAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 80, 29 August 1914, Page 3

ACROBATIC BURGLAR.

MODERN JACK h'liiUTAni). Elusiveness worlhr of 'lack wra shown by a r, who, in early morning. broke into Ye Old 'Bound Table Hotel in St. Martin's Courit, London. After robbing the till lie faced a perilous climb to the adjoining Charing I Cross mansions, only to be :odked in I thie telephone bos by the night watch,man whiie the police were sent for. •JWhen the police arrived he had vanished W tlhe way he came. The burglar entered the hotal by forcing back a fanlight over one of the front duo's in St. Martin's Court. Breaking open tihe Ibar till, he secured eight 6s packets of coppers, Ss in threepenny pieces, and a Mexican dollar, which 'had been gilded over and worn as j charm by the manager. In a drawcT at the base of the till, which had been opened, were a number of base silver coins of various denominations, the proceeds of sonic twelve months' trading The thief evidently know the difference betweem the true and base coins, for ne left them all behind. Opening a window at the bacl; of the bar the burglar, by a fine acrobatic feat, gat across the spaoe..fetween the (building and the mansions adjoining, and then climbed on to the sill of the room containing the telephone box, risking a 20ft fall into an area. The noise he made had alarmed the night •watrfhman of the mansions, who found bim in the box. (He pretended not to speak English. The night-watchman, with the burglar still in the box oy .his side, rang up police station, saying that he believed, he tad a burglar on the pre--1 mdscs, and asking that som.; officers ; should be sent/ round at once. He then [ locked ti>e man in the box and went to the front entrance of the mansions to 8 wait the police. Meantime the burglar climbed out through, the vfindow. The previous noise in the telephone (box had aroused four ba/nnaidks. On seeing the man escaping they called out to |the nig'it-vatchman, but he 'had gone/for the p.iiice. The burglar, to reassure £ho gi'ls, whose heads were out of the window some four feet overhead, said, "All right, miiises: I takes noding-s. I wants my coat from hotel, where I've ibcen sleeping after drinks and locked in." He again ferlonned Jiis 'perilous leap ovct the 20ft drop, regained tho tor, and escaped through the fanlight into St. Martin's Court.