BIG SCALE BURGLARS.

North Otago Times, 27 December 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

BIG SCALE BURGLARS.

Since the notorious Colonel Mood mado off with the crown and sceptre from the Tower of London-only to bo stopped and arrested, however, before he had got properly clear of the precincts-there has been no such robbery of State jewels in the United Kingdom as that which is now exciting the minds of the Dublin Castle officials.

.Nearly £OO,OOO is the vnluo r,f tho stolen insignia. This is a bif? sum, liut tlio thieves who stole the Tavernicr blue diamond from tho regalia of France netted about twice that ainoiint, and would have got much had they not been compelled to cut the gem into two pieces before disposing of it. Tho smaller of tho fragments, for which they received £23,000, crime by a roundabout way into the possession of the Mo of Brunswick, and was sold in 1871, at the dispersal of his collection, to a Swiss gentleman, The larger portion, weighing 44} carats, fetched £Bl- - and is now known as tin:

"Hope Diamond," niter the mime of the family purchasing it. Hound the historic gem a famous historic battle was fought, it will be remembered, in 1899, The theft of the State jewels of the Princess Lciiiingon, while Her Highness was stopping at a Liverpool hotel in the spring of 1900, came near to being one of the biggest coups of the kind on record. The Princess had with her gems worth £i;i0,000, including a regalia valued at over £(50,000; but, owing to tho robbers being disturbed, they got away with only about £6,000 worth of inferior trinkets.

Amongst them, however, wus a crown of beaten gold that had adorned the brows of dead and gone Leingens at the time when the family exercised "regal powers, and which was on that account valued by Her Highness very highly.