POWELKA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10012, 7 April 1910, Page 5

POWELKA.

PALMERSTON IN' A STATE OF FERMENT, FUGITIVE REMAINS UNCAPTURED. POLICE REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVING. i A SYSTEMATIC SEARCH TO BE COMMENCED. By Telegraph—Press Association. PALMERSTON N., April 6. Palmerston is still in a state of ferment. Women are coming in from the outlying houses to stay with friends in town, and town householders are kept in a constant state of alarm by their womenfolk. The matter is complicated by the fact that two Burnham School boys are at large, and other people are also apparently taking advantage of the Powelka scare.

The police have been doing excellent work in search of Powelka, and the patrols have had a rough time during the past fortnight, since the first evidence of Powelka's presence at Longburn, on Easter Saturday. While the number of false alarms that they have been made to suffer by excited individuals has given them | many a fruitless search. The only actual evidences of it being Powelka, according to the "Manawatu Daily Times," have been the breaking into of the Longburn store on Easter Saturday, "robbery under arpia" at Kendall's on Saturday night last, raiding of food at a residence in Broad Street on Monday night, and the sensation of last night, which may or may not have had any connection with the fugitive but which include an entrance to a shop in town, from which detonators were taken, and to a store close at hand, where a fire afterwards revealed itself. The police reinforcements have arrived from Taranaki, Wanganui and other centres, and more will arrive to-morrow. The area to be patrolled is so large that a fugitive might escape for many weeks, but a systematic search is to be made by day. The "Manawatu Daily Times" urges that in order to allay an alarm and lead to a speedy apprehension of the fugitive, that the Government at once offer a reward. It is certain that the fact of Powelka having twice escaped custody has won him certain sympathisers, but the sympthy is now giving place to alarm, which the paper considers every means should be taken to put an end to.