DARING MAIL ROBBERY.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1417, 29 November 1904, Page 4

DARING MAIL ROBBERY.

100 BAGS RIFLED ON AN EXPRIWS The Havre express carrying the Trans-Atlantic muil was on the Might of September 29 broken into and robbed shortly after leaving Paris. The theft was accomplished in the most daring manner, and the plunder carried off must have been very considerable. The express, which left the St. I azai'e station, Paris, at 11.35, and was due at Havre ai 5.0 the following morning, included two postal vans. The first was the mail van, in which the sorters go through the letters en route ; the second was the carriage lout by the Post Office to the rail v.vy company every Thursday and Friday ■ for the conveyance of the American mail. Strange as it may seem considering its valuable contents, no special >vateh was exercised over the van; no »ne travelled in it, and its only protection i was a small padlock on each side. This lack of adequate protection appears all the more extraordinary when it is known that only a week before one of the locks on tho mail van was wrenched off during the run to Ma-re, but as the mail matter on that occasion included no registered letters or packages it. was not interfered v.ith. and was found intact when - the O'ain reached its destination. Whether the robbers of the mail got on the train during a stoppage or clambered along to the locked van from another carriage while the train was in motion is not known. It was only when the express arrived at Rouen at two o'clock next morning and the.van was opened for the reception ol some more correspondence that the theft was discover - .?.!. The. lock on tho side facing the sixfoot way was gone, and tho whole of the bags—nearly a hundred in number —had been ripped open and despoiled of their contents. ' The empty bugs lay on tho 'lcor where they had been thrown, and the van was littered with remains of torn letters and registered packages. Of the thieves there was not the slightest trace. After the first moment of stupefaction telegrams were despatched to the authorities at Paris and Havre, and the express resumed its journey. The police have not the slightest clue to tho audacious perpetrators cf the robbery, and whether it is the work of an experienced gang a.'ti.ig alone or with the complicity of a postal employee- remains to be detefnined. . What makes the occurrence of /Trace importance to English people is (\:\t, in addition to the mails from France, Spain and Italy, the postal van contained correspondence from Egypt and Italy, and being the end of the month the mail was likely to be unus.i illy heavv.