ENGLISH RUSTLERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 177, 29 July 1939, Page 7

ENGLISH RUSTLERS.

6000 SHEEP STOLEN. THE POLICE BAFFLED. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, July 8. In the past few months over 6000 sheep have been stolen from English farmers and over 600 cattle and horses have disappeared. Over 3000 raids have been made on poultry farms, and tens of thousands of chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys have been removed. The secretary of the live stock committee of the National Farmers' Union said this week: "The position is serious. We are, of course, doing all we can to assist the police, but there is little help we can give our members at present. Various suggestions are being considered by my committee. They include a proposal to ask the Government to pass a bill prohibiting the moving of live ?tock after dusk and a demand for bigger rural police forces. The difficulty is to decide what schemes will do most good and at the same time inconvenience farmers as little as possible.* Police officers who have investigated raids in Suffolk and Xorfolk believe that the raiders drive up with a covered lorry to isolated fields after dark. Silently, two members of the gang open the gate and drive the selected beasts from thee !field and up a-ramp into the lorry.| | Before dawn they are more than 100| miles away. Most bafflincr mystery is I how they manage to sell the stolen beasts. It is thought possible that the gang have working with them a butcher's jobber, who specialises in selling parts of an animal to small shops.- '