“ALMOST INCREDIBLE.”

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1921, Page 3

“ALMOST INCREDIBLE.”

A TALE OF STOLEN BANK NOTES.

This is an almost incredible story,” said Sheriff Orr at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, on August 21. in ordering an eleven year old boy, named Samuel Laing, residing at G 4 Tennant-Street, Leith, to receive ten stripes with the birch rod. The boy admitted having stolen £59 10s from a baker’s shop in Albert street, Leith.

The Fiscal stated that the money belonged to a commercial traveller who had called at the shop. He placed a wallet containing £s9' 10s on the counter as he had occasion to go out to the street to his motor car. In his brief absence from the shop, the accused, who had been standing at the counter opened the wallet and abstracted the money, comprising five £lO notes, nine £1 notes, and a Treasury note for 10s. It was not until late in the evening that the owner discovered the theft. Meanwhile the accus.d had made off w’ith the money, and later that day he and a number of companions were in a picture-house, when a cry was raised that a woman’s pocket had been picked. The picture-house manager thereupon requested that all the boys in the vicinity of the woman should be searched. The accused, who was one of the boys, was seen to crawl down below the seats and to empty his pockets of notes. These, when picked up, amounted to £8 10§. Questioned as to where he got them, the accused eventually admitted that he had stolen them from the shop in Albert street. ,

The police, on searching the yard, found pieces of a bank note. The other four £lO notes the boy said he had torn up and put them down a street sewer. On search being made in the sewer no trace of them could be found.