A BURGLAR'S RAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9039, 4 March 1908, Page 5

A BURGLAR'S RAID.

MASTERTON JEWELLERY SHOP RANSACKED.

OVER FORTY POUNDS' WORTH OF JEWELLERY MISSING.

Early yesterday morning the jewellery shop of Mr J. Scott r in Queen street, was visited by a burglar, and stock to the value of something over £4O was found to be missing by Mr Scott on opening the shop for business as usual. An entrance was gained through a window at the back of the premises opening into the workshop. This window whs fastened to the sill by two mils driven through the sash, but evidently a strong tool of some sort had been used to lever up the sash, as the nails indicated so much.

'lh3 thief was apparently very deliberate in his movements, and tie jewellery stolen was removed from cardr, etc., and these were replaced carefuUy. The missing articles comprised silver pencil cases, alberts, silver-backed hair brushes, thimbles, necklaces and a tray of greenstone pendants. Mr Scott followed his customary plan of storing most of the valuables in the safe, otherwise his loss would assuredly have been greater. The marauder ignored entirely the large articles of silverplate lined up in rows in the show cases. No serious attempt was made to tamper with the safe, though interference with papers lying on top of it showed that it had not been entirely disregarded. Miss Smith, who was sleeping in her father's shop premises in the same block,"was face to face withj the culprit just after his pillage under trying circumstances for her. She was awake with a headache at about a quarter to three, and hearing a noise in the yard looked through the window, and could just discern the face of a man looking at her. She called out to him to leave the premises, at the same time dropping a pair of her father's boots on the floor to give the man the impression that her father was in the house. The intruder nude off at top speed, awakening as he went Mrs Nairn, Miss Smith's sist?r, who was sleeping in a cottage at the back with her two children. The two ladies went into Queen street, but the burglar had disappeared down Church street. A member of the Wairarapa Age staff, Mr D. Nicholson, who was passing the entrance to the lane leading to the back yard of the burglarised premises, actually passed the burglar on his way out with the booty. The man was running hard, and when accosted ran faster. Of course no suspicion crossed Mr Nicholson's mind that a felony had been committed, and he made no attempt to check the progress of the thief, who cleared down Church Street.

Miss Smith described the man as wearing a skull cap, which was about all she could distinguish in the darkness. Mr Nicholson also says the man was wearing' a skull cap, and was a rather under-sized individual. The police are investigating the matter, and are carefully preserving some finger-prints made by the thief on the light dust of a shelf, which may lead to his identification.