MELBOURNE HOTEL RAIDED.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1922, Page 10

MELBOURNE HOTEL RAIDED.

SENSATIONAL EARRY MORNING CRIME. ACTRESS LOSES ' £550 CLEVER, WELL-PLANNED COUP. Melbourne, March 4. An audacious hold-up, accompanied by violence to a night porter, and leading to a big haul by burglars, occurred early this morning. The premises raided were the Grand Hotel, and the adjoining White Hart Hotel, opposite Federal Parliament House, and while the onslaught on the office safe of the smaller building was a minor enterprise, yielded nothing, that on the safes of the Grand Hotel resulted in the disappearance of about £7OO, including £550 which had been lodged for safe-keeping on behalf of Miss Edith Drayson, the well-known actress.

Surprising a night porter at the front door, the thieves bound and gagged him with the celerity of practised experts, and proceeded, with equally effective craftsmanship, to rifle the office safes. The whole of their operations did not occupy more than 20 minutes. Having been stunned by a violent blow on the head, William Killian, the night porter, who answered the burglars’ knock, can only bring a misty intelligence to bear on the investigations, but an examination of the hotel and its precincts make the affair easy of reconstruction.

So swiftly and surely did the burglars act, that, in spite of the prompt alarm which spread all over the house, they effected their escape. Smashed locksj empty safes, and porter Killian lying on the floor of the manager’s office, were found by the secortd night porter between 1.30 a.m. and 2 a.m. The men had entered the hotel, knocked the night porter violently on the head, and carried him to the manager’s room. Then, they took the key to the manager’s safe from the drawer of his desk; and removed all his private property. Crossing to ! the other side of the vestibule, the thieves rifled the cash box inside a large safe, in the clerk’s office, taking about £7OO of which £oso belonged to Miss Edith Drayson, who is one of J. C. Williamson’s leading ladies. She had just returned from a tour as principal girl in the pantomime, “Humpty Dumpty,” and in “The Lilac Domino.” and other productions. , The thieves then went into the White Hart Hotel next door, which was recently acquired by the Grand Hotel Company, and commenced work on the safe there. They were disturbed, however, and went away leaving £lOO in the safe. They decamped in a motor car.