TOMB ROBBERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 89, 21 May 1914, Page 3

TOMB ROBBERS.

BAND OF GHOTTIiS PAPTUSE3

I After a search which ha 3 continue I over two years, the Paris police have-at last captured a band of ghouls who haw rifled no fewer than 78 vaults at Jer'oLa chaise Cemetery. It was towards the end of 1011 ihu* early one morning the vault containing ' • the remains of Mile Laiitelme (Mni'e. Alfred Edwards,- who was drowned ■ while touring on the Rhine in a house- . % boat) was discovered to have been broken into. The little chapel, in which J M. Edwards used to rcst*during his frequent visits to his wife's, tomb had been ransacked and desecrated, and the coffin had been burst open. The thieves had, however, failed to find the jewels which were the object of their search, they having been placed under . the head of the corpse. J' - T The affair caused a 'Sensation, but lit was soon forgotten, for the police were unaljle to find any clue leading -to N the "perpetrators of the outrage. la j spite of the fact that the cemetery is patrolled by thirty-six watchmen, these outrages were repeated again jaiuT again with impunity. Even the cctpetery chapel,, was robbed... ,The.burghers had-, penetrated* by climbing, up- to ah attic window and then letting .themselves down into the nave by means of ropes. It has since been discovered that the gang used a peculiar lozengeshaped sign wliich they drew with, a piece of- chalk on all the vaults likely to furnish booty.- • It ,seemed as though, the efforts of watchmen and police were doomed to failure, when a couple of ,the former, while going their rounds, noticed a man lurking around the tombs. They followed him when he left the cemetery, and saw Mini enter a curiosity shop -on the Quai de Montebello, "where he sold a statuette of the Virgin for six francs. The man, who is a decorator and painter named Geslin, was arrested with two other men and a woman, and.' the police are confident that they will shortly have the whole gang—they are thought to number a dozen—under lock and key. .