RELIEVED OF THEIR CASH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1711, 30 December 1919, Page 7

RELIEVED OF THEIR CASH.

ncKi’uuvias at ellerslie. TAKE ADVANTAGE, OF CROWDS. Members of the light-fingered fraternity were well in evidence at Euerslie races cn Krutay (-ays the Auckland Star) and a imni ber m people, in addition to such losses ;.s they may have sustained at the ton ml themselves relieved of the cash they carried in their pockets m the course ol me ,lav. The modus operamli was not by any means new, but it is a method that has been followed with more or loss success smeo the days when people first eomenced to wear pockets, and to guthci together in crowds at racecourses and other places. The crowd at the races was an exceptionally largo one, and the crush at the totalisator and paywindows a Horded an excellent oportnmtj foj* the sneak thief. One gentleman, \vho ondcs himseit on being rather wide awake, and certainly not a novice on the racecourse, managed, after considerable dithcuily to pnreinise a nuinber of tickets on a ceitain horse which subsequently paid a fair chvinend. When lie got, out of the crush ho found that ho had been relieved of a bundle of notes totalling nearly £lO. “Luckily for me,” he remarked, “they missed my totalisator tickets.” Another follower of the races is reported to have been deprived of about £5. A well known t hristchurch pressman, who had come to Auckland for tin- hondav season, loimd that he had been relieved of £4O while in a crowd on the lawn. Nor did the light lingered gentry coniine their attentions wholly to men. A ladv assured that she had “picked a winner,” hurried to the totalisator with her bag' oti Iter arm to “got the money On.” When she finally got to the vicinity of the ticket window, through the crush, and went to her bag for the cash, she found that the bag was missing, and all that remained on her arm was the handle. Further evidence of the presence of lightfingered gentlemen in our midst is the experience of a well known Hemuera resident, who uas relieved of £4O in a tramcar the other day (says the Auckland Star). Jlo received two cheques earlier in the day, and converted them into notes, unfortunately, for the wad was taken holes bolus from his pocket without tlje slightest hitch, the thief doing his work in such a way that it came as a grea surprise and shock to its late owner to find that he had been relieved < f the money in such ft nimble manner.