DARING ROBBERY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 61, 11 March 1916, Page 9

DARING ROBBERY.

VICTIM VXOIXHTLY ASSAULTED. CLEVEB. POLICE CAPTURE. AFI'EE A LONG CHASE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. A story of a somewhat daring robbery, attended by considerable violence, and a subsequent esciting chase after the assailant, was told by Sergt. Cassells before Mr. Eawson, S.M., in the Hamilton Court to-day, when a young man named Alfred Smyth (alias Burrell) was charged with having robbed Alexander McKenzie of £8 19/1J at Pirongia on Thursday night. It seems that McKenzie, who i« an elderly man, went to bed at the Pirongia Hotel at 10.30 on Thursday night, leaving a considerable sum of money in his clothing, which hung up in his bedroom. He had not retired long when he felt the mattress forced upwards. He leaned out of bed, and, feeling beneath the bed, his hand came into contact with a protruding foot. He immediately jumped out of bed. A man sprang from beneath the bed and violently attacked him, knocking out several of his teeth and rendering him unconscious. Hearing groaning in the direction of McKenzie's room, the hotel proprietor 1 Mr. McCarthy) went to inquire what was wrong. As Mr. McCarthy arrived at McKenzie's door a man came out barefooted, and rushed past Mr. McCarthv, stating that he was going for help. ' The police at Hamilton and Te Awamutu were communicated with, and after an exciting chase through the back country Smyth was arrested late last night by Sergt. Cassells and Constables Doyle and Murphy at a Maori encampment back from the main road in Karamu, where he was negotiating for the hire of a horse. As he was in his bare feet be must have travelled seventeen miles bootless. There was great excitement in the camp, the Maoris cheering the officers as they handcuffed the man and carried away their quarry. Accused appeared in Court to-day, and was remanded till Wednesday next.