WELLINGTON JEWELLERY ROBBERY.

Evening Star, Issue 6919, 4 June 1885, Page 4

WELLINGTON JEWELLERY ROBBERY.

Wellington was rather startled yesterday (says the ' New Zealand Times' of Thursday) by the announcement that a most extensive robbery of watches and jewellery had taken place on the premises of Mr G. L. Jenness, watchmaker and jeweller, Willis street. No robbery on anything like the .same scale had ever bofore taken place in Wellington. The list of the goods taken, the value of which Mr Jenness estimates at 1,790, is as* follows :—2fl gold watches, 40 silver watches, 20 solid gold alberts, 15 English alberts, '2O ladies' gold alberts, 40 to 4.") gold necklets, '24 silver necklets, 12 ladies' silver alberts, li dozen silver rings, 12 gold liiMoches, 4 pairs diamond earrings, 24 gold brooches and earrings, including 5 diamond sets, valued from L.-f to LSj, 12 gold and diamond scarfpins. On Saturday night Mr Oennoß liad put away the bulk of the goods in the safe, where they remained until Tuesday morning. Feeling rather tired that night, Mr Jenness allowed the goods to remain where he placed them in the morning, and retired to rest about the usual hour. So far as he is able to recollect, he does not remember having lately seen any persons, except one, of a nuspicious-looking character, in his shop. The man whom he noticed stood at the off counter, and appeared to take a cuisory survey of the premises. _ The doors were locked, the keys being left in the inside. The burglars, finding that to bis the case, cut away one of the paatla near, the

lock, and tunietl the key. They effected an entrance by the back door, and passed through the workshop into the front portion of the premises. "Though Mr Jenness and family always sleep on the premises, they did not hear a sound of any Kind, but it is evident the burglars were disturbed by some noise or alarm, for they would not, in all probability, have left so soon had not something or another occurred. Mr Jenness thinks that a clock, which sounds a loud bugle alarm every hour, must have been the cause of their leaving as soon as they did. Constable Bree, who was on the Wittls streat beat on Tuesday night, states that he saw no suspicious-looking persons about. It is quite possible, seeing how close the premises are to the harbor, that the burglars might have got hold of a boat, and that they arrived at the scene by that means, and decamped in the same way. It is quite evident that they are not mere amateur robbers ; the systematic way m which they did their work proveß that they are "professionals." The lantern which they used and left behind them in the shop is a very common article, such as any market gardener might bring into town. The glass was covered over with sheets of zinc, which could be easily made to slide up or down as required; and one side of the glass was covered over with thin pasteboard. Mr Jenness finds some little consolation in the fact that the robbery might have been a good deal worse, as would inevitably have been the case had there not been an interruption of some kind.