SOME THIEVES’ CUNNING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1667, 1 December 1887, Page 4

SOME THIEVES’ CUNNING.

Some five or six years ago the shopkeepers of Bradford were thrown into a state of alarm by a couple of young lads. One of the two used to make a small purchase at a shop, and, by telling a plausible tale that a boy outside would take the purchase from him if it were seen, he got the shopman t!o put the article down the back of his coat. Whilst thus employed, the ingenius youth very easily relieved the shopmans’s watch, and then bolted. After him came “ the boy outside,” to inform the shopman of his loss. The latter, having had carefully described to him the road the thief had not taken ran at once after the culprit, the second boy in the meantime helping himself to the contents of the till. How often this larceny was practised few shopmen in Bradford care to remember. Another instance of the remarkable coolness and audacity of a thief, though perhaps notan uncommon one, is worth relating. One day, a Liverpool “ stalk a man capable of doing mischief of any kind for a trifle—having watched his opportunity, took up a coat that hung outside a pawnbroker’s shop. Flinging it over his arm, and carrying it into the shop aa if intending to make purchase, he offered it for sale. Hot recognising his own property, the pawnbroker

bought the coat. But even this did not satisfy the thief. He bandied some silk handkerchiefs, and in choosing one, remarked carelessly, “ Take payment for this out of the money fur the coat.” “ But I harp given you the money,” indignantly answered the pawnbroker. “Oh no, you haven’t,” said the thief. A warm altercation ensued. In vain the shopman protested that he had paid the money; and at last the thief went out in search of an officer to settle the dispute, taking with him some silver spoons, several silk handkerchiefs, as well as the silk handkerchief ip question, which in hip excitement the pawnbroker had forgotten.