GOUDIE'S CAPTURE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7372, 25 January 1902, Page 4 (Supplement)

GOUDIE'S CAPTURE.

TRACING THE CHEQUES.

LONDON, December 6. Thomas Peterson Goudie, through whose instrumentality the Bank of Liverpool may have to make a stiffish call on its happily ample reserve fund of £600,000, had but a brief spell of freedom after his flight from the bank on the afternoon of Thursday, November 21st. Last Monday, just 11 days after he absconded, the poilce ran him to earth at Bootle. His place of refuge during the hunt had been the house of a respectable artisan named Harding, with whom he had arranged to lodge for 14/ a week, firing extra. To Mrs Harding he appeared as a party named "Colinson"-a seafaring man with a damaged leg, who was an avid reader of newspapers and had a predilection for telegraphy as a means of corresponding with his friends. For several days Colinson stuck to the house, excusing himself from taking walks abroad on the score of his leg; but one fine day he left the house, and Mrs Harding saw no more of him for 48 hours. Then he came back limping, and grumbling because his leg had become bad again and had prevented him rejoining his ship. For the next few days the lodger was always at home, and his only vis-tor was a gentleman who posed as a doctor. So matters went on till Saturday last, when some ot Harding's mates, to whom he had mentioned the fact of his having a new lodger, began to chaff him, sugggesting that he had been entertaining Goudie unawares. Harding so far had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the game-legged lodger, but his comrade's rude chaff determined him to have a good view of "Colinson," and on some trivial pretence he went to the lodger's room and took stock of its occupant. He discovered that Goudie had some facial and physical points in common with the absconding bank clerk as pourtrayed in the local papers, and after consulting with his wife despatched her early on Monday to the local police station to air their suspicions. The upshot was that a couple of detectives went at oj»ce to Mrs Ha'rding's house and nabbed Goudie in bed. He made no attempt to deny his identity, and was promptly removed to the police station, whence he was sent to London for his preliminary trial at Bow-street. Goudie's proceedings after he took French leave from the bank were simplicity itself. He made his way to the Canning Dock and passed some time in the hut of a dock gateman, who gave him a cloth cap. Then as darkness fell he made his way on foot to Bootle, which is barely five miles from Liverpool, and on the morrow became Mrs Harding's lodger. His absence from her domicile for a couple of days is supposed to be accounted for by a vain trip to Southport in search of means of escape from the country per ship, Liverpool and all the principal ports being too closely watched to give him a ten to one chance of getting away.