MAGPIE BURGLAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 September 1931, Page 8

MAGPIE BURGLAR

THREE YEARS’ LOOT HIDDEN.

SYDNEY, September 4-

The romantic career of an eccentric Sydney burglar, rivalling Raffles of fiction, has been expofeed by the ari-est of a young man and the recovery of £2OOO worth of jewellery', cutlery and glassware hidden in a house at Willoughby.

The young man was recently discharged from the Royai Australian Navy, but it has been established that for the past three years, while he was still in the Navy, he had adopted a career of housebreaking. He has admitted having been, responsible for as many as 30 burglaries, in almost every suburb in Sydney, during the past three years, and declared that he used to discard his uniform when on leave and tour the suburbs looking for likely houses.

The police were searching the neighbourhood in connection with another matter, and they chanced to look underneath the house where the young man was living. They discovered a dozen suitcases packed with clothing and jewellery, some of which they recognised as being the proceeds of several robberies. They questioned the young man and searched the rooms of the house. They found there a conglomeration of goods ranging from wristlet watches to big diningroom clocks, and from fine lace handkerchiefs to heavy curtain draperies. The man had apparently made no effort to dispose of his loot, but was content to store it in all manner of hiding places round the house. He will face 30 charges of breaking and entering.