ROBBING SLOT TELEPHONES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2386, 16 February 1915, Page 5

ROBBING SLOT TELEPHONES

ARREST OF AN EMBRYO "RAFFLES."

For the last twelve months the telephone authorities and the police have been much coucerned over the frequent breaking open of dot telephones, and the rifling of the monetary contents. Watches have been set "on different boxes, stronger and apparently safer cash receptacles placed on the telephones, new ideas suggested, all of which were supplemented by the inevitable letter-writing to the> Press, but all to no . avail; the plundering of the 'phono boxes still went on. Now it would he a box at Lyall Bay, now one in the heart of the city, then one at Kaiwarra, but always the miscreant was undiscovered. Now at last the police have discovered the alleged offender. Yesterday Detective Mason and Constable Tricklebank arrested a youth of 15 years who admitted eighteen charges of breaking open and stealing from tho boxes of slot telephones. All the offences are alleged to have been committed within the past three months. Naturally, with the depredations extending over such a Jong period, the' formulation of a list of charges had been no easy matter; the youth has, however, confessed to 18 charges. . The story of the lad's nocturnal tour of the 'phone boxes of the City, smacks of the history of an embryo Raffles. Armed-with his little kit of implements, the-youth has systematically gone through tho process of collecting. One night he would visit Lyall Bay, and at about ono or two in the morning he would steal into the box, open out his tools, ■ wrench open the telephone cashbox, take the contents, and depart. Where, as in quite a number of cases in the City, the cash-box of the 'phone is detached, he has unscrewed the box from the wall and made away with receptacle and contents both. He has not made tho mistake of other "crooks," that of having a-confederate, but has worked on his own always. Ho was not caught red-handed at his occupation, but was just happened upon by Detcctivo Mason and Constable Tricklebank yesterday, and then made a "clean breast" of it. The plundering of these boxes has caused no end of trouble to tho authorities, and was respousiblo even for a change in the type of telephono. The youthful burglar will appear before the Magistrate this morning. It is understood that lie lias resided with his mother in tho City for some time past.