MAIL VAN STOLEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAIL VAN STOLEN.

DARINtt THEFT IX A FRENCH CITY.

Paris. December 2.- A theft of incredible audacity was successfully carried out in the streets of Toulouse last night. The driver of a mail van pulled up his horses at a brand) post office to pick up some bags, leaving the van, which contained orders and cash of the value of £28,000, in the street. He was absent barely two minutes, but when he returned to the street found, to his utter astonishment, that the van had gone. Thinking the horse might have gone the usual route of its own accord he dashed down the street. Seeing no sign of the van he ran back to the post office and gave the alarm. The teleplione was set to work, and almost immediately the whole police force turned out. For two hours they scoured the streets and inspected every stable without result. Some time after midnight, three hours and a-half after its disappearance, they discovered the van. in a disused yard littered with bricks and rubbish. It was empty. The driver now remembers meeting a young man .with a fair beard in the post office passage. He also found the door leading into the street ingeniously closed by an iron bar on the outside. At the time he thought lids was the work of a. practical joker, '"it is now obvious that it was part of a. skilful plot. The thieves examined their booty by candle light in the disused yard, where the police found hundreds of letters torn open. Several 'registered letters and some boxes of jewellery were found strewn on the ground and intact. The exact sum stolen is not known, but it is believed In exceed £25,000. In the last case of a robbery of mails the French Post Office refused to refund the value of registered parcels stolen.