A MYSTERIOUS BURGLAR.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15489, 17 January 1916, Page 10

A MYSTERIOUS BURGLAR.

• HIS ECCENTRIC METHODS. (SPECIAIi TO "THE PBIS8.") WELLINGTON, January 10. An eccentric burglar has been operating in Wellington for about six months. In several "ways he is ecccntric. He has been known to spend time and energy"'in forcing a .door lo get into a house, when'a few feet away was an open window. In houses into which he has broken he. makes- a curious choice of things to steal. Quito laboriously he will possess himself of a pair of nine-carat sleeve-links, and pass oyer a valuable gold watch. This lie has actually done. He never attacks any - buildings except ' private houses, and usually he is busv quite early in fcho night. Th e authorities are utterly at a loss. This unknown thief escapes all -the usual burglar traps, and now it is practically accepted as a certainty that he cannot be oaupht until somebody takes him redhanded/ There, are various theories as to the sort of man this burglar will prove to be. Some hold the opinion that he is a crazy maniac; others that 110 has taken up the crime, of burglary .is a diversion. Ho is at any rate the worst burglar as a tradesman that has ever plundered. In some houses he has done damage to doors and furnishings with his chisels and other which . has cost more to repair tlian it would cost to replace the goods he has stolen. Some of his freaks seem to suggest mere mischief. He has been known to discover—no doubt at considerable pains—a bunch of keys which would have given him access to booty of considerable 'value, and to leave the booty undisturbed, and go off with the" keys. But he does not make the usual . mistakes by which, burglars and other thiefs are caught.