BULGARIAN BANDITS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 53, 26 November 1929, Page 2

BULGARIAN BANDITS

HOLDING UP THE ORIENT EXPRESS

The cable news that the Orient express (of Europe) had been held up near the Servian border by Bulgarian bandits has created surprise and some dismay among those who have had the experience of travelling in perfect comfort and ease by this luxurious train that runs from Constantinople through to Vienna, thence on to France and Germany. It is not uncommon for people from Australia and even New Zealand to book Home by that route in order to see as many of the European countries as possible. Australian people often break away from the mailboat at Fort Said, travel through the Holy Land, and thence proceed on to the Bosphorus, and after seeing Constantinople travel west by the Orient express by way of Turkey, Bulgaria, Seryia, Hungary, and Vienna. The train is a very well appointed one, indeed.

“We travelled that way home the last time we visited Europe/’ said a Wellington resident to a “Dominion” reporter, “and we found it a very delightful way of seeing that Continent and quite reasonable . on the score of cost, made so oh account of the keen competition of the various airways. I remember meeting someone we knew in Constantinople. We told him we were leaving that day for Vienna by the express. He said he would be leaving the same afternoon, but by the air. Do you know that he was in Vienna two days before we reached there by continuous express travelling on the railway? “Of course, all the world knows that the people of Eastern Europe are thieves. They will steal anything. For that reason people are warned not to leave their carriage windows open at stations on account of the adroitness of the thieves, who have devices for hooking things out through the windows. Then there are others who travel by the train, whose gentle vocation it is to take advantage of people’s absence from their carriage seats to hurl their luggage through the windows, luggage -which in due course is picked up by the thief’s confederates who patrol the line looking for such loot. Others will board the train whilst it is stationary and endeavour to remove luggage without authority. “Though one has to keep on the alert from such roguery, it is amazing to hear of thp whole express being held up, the train uncoupled from the engine, and some of Hie passengers shot. It will. I should think, be a deterrent to travel) by that route, and will be of enormous advantage to the European airways.”