AUDACIOUS THIEVES.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17208, 27 July 1921, Page 2

AUDACIOUS THIEVES.

TBIOKS WORKED ON SYDNEY PEOPLE. (*BO« 01JB OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, July 19. A solemn Magistrate was presiding over a solemn suburban police court. The proceedings droned on, and the attendant* were in a, pleasant postprandial half-dose. The door was opened quietly and two men entered with a step-ladder. They went to the back of the Court, removed the large clock, and took it away. No one objected. The clock lhad not been keeping good time, and some slight attention was needed. No one ever saw the clock again in that Court. Some days passed, in fact, before those interested began even to suspect the trick-that had been worked on them. A city man got married, and furnished, with elaboration and taste, a charming bungalow in a- waterside suburb. The house remained locked up, wihilo the couple were away on honeymoon. One day a couple of vans stopped before the house, and three men began to load the furniture into tha vans. No one interfered with them. That is a. peculiarity of Sydney life—"stickybeak" neighbours are not encouraged. When the married couple came back home, they found 90 per cent of their new furniture missing, and it was never traced. # A man wflio was once a successful auctioneer in Invercargill, and is now a resident of Syunev, bought a salanola (a cabinet gramophone) for £4O the other day, put it in the back of his car and left it there while ho and his wife went into Grace Bros.' big department store. When they came back the big talking machine, with various parcels, had vanished, and was never seen again. Stories such as these appear in the Sydney newspapers almost every day. The police have to some extent broken np the crime wave, but the sneak thieves are always with us, and they seem to be developing greater ingenuity and audacity.