THIEF’S WANDERINGS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 May 1927, Page 2

THIEF’S WANDERINGS

FROM CRIB TO BOND STORE.

(Per Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, May 13. Arthur- George Renney appeared at the Police Court this morning, on twenty-four charges of breaking, entering and theft. An astonishing story of his wanderings between Evansdale and Dunedin during the last four months was read in his signed statement. The incentive to breaking into various dwellings and cribs was apparently mainly hunger. Invariably his stay in unoccupied cribs was marked by much feasting. Rarely did he hinder himself with anything not useful to his wanderings. On one occasion after breaking into a crib at St. Leonards and boarding himself gratis for two days, he embarked on an old row-boat. He had a rather perilous three hours’ voyage in a leaky tub to Broad Bay. Continuing his wanderings and depredations among East Harbour cribs, sometimes he was without food for days, sleeping among lupins. Then some weeks ago he bethought himself of the good things stored in Neill’s Bond in the city, and made entry in the fashion previously described (May 6), living heartily on tinned delicacies, champagne, etc., hiding by day among the rafters. Often in his lonely wanderings he sat in the scrub above Ravensbourne watching his former home, where his wife and baby lived. The latter was born after he quitted home for the hills, and one of his first questions after his arrest was whether it was a boy or girl. Reney pleaded guilty to all the charges and was committed for sentence.