TAPPING THE WIRES

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 June 1930, Page 12

TAPPING THE WIRES

HOW ELECTRICITY IS STOLEN.

Almost daily one hears of various forms of theft, but the stealing of electric light is an. unusual type of offence. That it exists is beyond doubt; that it is difficult to detect and sneet home is equally beyond doubt, and this is one of the difficulties with which the city mectrical department has to contend (says the Dominion). An interesting “exhibit” has come into the possession of the department as a resuit of the alertness of one of its officers. It’is a piece of thin wire about six inches long, bent in the form of a semi-circle. The tenant of a house was in arrears with his lighting account, and as he did not pay his supply was disconnected. He had sublet the back rooms, the sub-tenant paying a small additional sum to cover the cost of light. Not being able to get a light, the sub-tenant inquired as to the. trouble, and, on being told, advanced money to pay the account so that the connection could be restored. The connection was restored, but not by the department, and the man in the back room had his light, which was all he was concerned about.

An officer of the department, however, knowing something of the circumstances, saw lights in the house, and made a few quiet investigations. On gaining admission to the house he round a small piece of wire had been fixed to tire bottom portion of the meter, making a short circuit so that the current was not recorded- by the meter. It is probable that the tenant will be called upon in the near future to give some explanation of the affair. It is, however, a dangerous business for amateurs to attempt anything of this kind, for it requires some technical knowledge to achieve this ingenious fraud, and a shock from the new voltage is powerful enough to be fatal. “A NEAT LITTLE GADGET.” Some considerable time ago the department suffered considerable . loss from a devise which was unwittingly installed by principals in a number of business premises in the city, and it was only discovered by a “fluke.” An officer of the department one day met the owner of a shop in the main street, who boasted that his electricity account was only half of what it used to be, thanks to a “neat little gadget” he had bought one day. His usual account was about £ 6 a month, and it came down to about £3. The officer was interested. “I want to have a look at it,” he said, and was taken to the establishment. At the back of the meter was the “neat little gadget,” a piece of metal with a very thick wire spring on each end, and this had been attached in a manner —but out of sight, so as to short-circuit about half the current, in a similar manner to the first-men-tioned case. ’the business man explained that a man had called on him two or three months previously selling the contrivances—which would not cost more than 6d each—at 10/- each, guaranteeing that it would save at least 25 per cent, on his lighting account, and if it did not he could have his money back. The saving had amounted to 50 per cent, during the period the device had been in use. The matter was put in the hands of the police, and the man was brought to book, becoming “the guest” of the country for a period. In the meantime he had disposed of several dozen of the “neat little gadgets” in the city area, and if all the accounts had been reduced by half, then the loss to the department over a period of about three months was fairly heavy. In another instance a man went into an empty house from which the wires had been disconnected and the meter removed. By some means or other the connection was restored, without the knowledge of the department, and the man had. “free light” for several months before it was discovered. The man denied all knowledge of the affair, saying "he had nothing to do with the paving of household accounts and did not know he had been getting electricity for nothing for most of a year.