THE PAHIATUA MYSTERY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2466, 18 February 1893, Page 4

THE PAHIATUA MYSTERY.

The Melbourne Argus of February 4, says : —An arrest was made in Bourke street yesterday by Detectives Ward and Macmanamy, which may assist materially in clearing away the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a contractor named Jacobsen from 1 ’ahiatna, near Wellington, New Zealand, in November 1890. During 1890 Jacobsen, who was a married man with three children, was joined by a younger man named William Smith, and together they contracted to clear some land at Pahiatua, near Wellington, for a selector, one George Hambrook. The contract was scarcely completed when Smith engaged a carrier to transport his camp and personal luggage to the nearest township. The carrier who knew Jacobsen, asked if he were not going too, and Smith answered “ Oh, no ; he has already gone Home.” That remark was the first intimation of Jacobsen’s disappearance, and from then till now the police of New Zealand have searched with unremitting diligence, but in vain, for traces of Jacobsen. When the carrier assisted Smith to the township he, too, disappeared, and the police were unable to get details of Jacobsen’s latter movements which he would have been able to supply. Having a keen desire to obtain this information, the police sought Smith while they were also seeking Jacobsen, and they were fortified in their work by a warrant for Smith’s arrest, which was issued by Hambrook and charged Smith with larceny of camp gear. Months passed, and no news of either of the partners was learned until recently, when word reached Now Zealand that Smith was in Victoria. Detective O’Connor, of the New Zealand police, was sent over to endeavour to effect his arrest, but after a six weeks’ search ho was forced to abadon the task as a hopeless one. He returned to New Zealand at Christmas, and left, as a legacy with the criminal investigation officers of police in Victoria, a photograph and description of the missing man, with the request that every possible endeavour should be made to effect his arrest. Ward and Macmanamy were rewarded for watchfulness by recognising Smith in Bourke street yesterday afternoon. The man denied that he was Smith at first, but in a few minutes he said that it was useless to deny his identity, so he said he was the man wanted by the New Zealand police. He was locked up on a charge of larceny of camp gear, the property of George Hambrook, and will be remanded from time to time, pending the arrival from New Zealand of an officer who will escort him to Dunedin. Accused serveti two months’ imprisonment at Christchurch, New Zealand, in the beginning of 1884. He was known to the police under the alias of Aldridge.