ENGLISHMAN KIDNAPPED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

ENGLISHMAN KIDNAPPED.

j ANXIETY AMONG BRITISH RESI- ■ • , DENTS. ' , - ■ Renter's correspondent at Uskub sends the following account of the capture by brigands, on Thursday, March 21, of Mr. Robert Abbott, the nineteen-year-old son of Mr. Alfred Abbott, a/well-known British subject, residing in the outskirts of Salonika. Mr. Abbott,' it appeal's, was returning home about ten o'clock. He alighted from a tramcar at the gate, his father's garden, within, fifty or sixty yards of home, but on his way through the garden he seems to have been set upon by ' a party of several men lying in ambush, who, in spite of his struggles, to which the broken branches and trampled ground bear testimony, bound and; gagged him, and carried him off to a carriage which they had in waiting. Although of robust build, , the victim had become deaf and dumb in consequence of a serious illness during childhood, and this circumstance doubtless rendered it easier to surprise and overpower him. So far as has been ascertained the brigands, for such they are supposed to be, left none of their belongings behind them except a couple of handkerchiefs and a piece of a silver chain. The crime is with some probability attributed to an Albanian band which has long infested . the neighbourhood of Salonika; but it is evident that they must have been guided by someone thoroughly familiar with the "locality and with : the - habits of the victim. His walking stick was found outside the garden gate, on the opposite side of the road, where it was probably thrown by one of the band; and this seems to show that he must have been taken away in a- carriage, wmcti had been kept in waiting. The Turkish authorities* unwilling to admit that he could have been carried away past a- policestation, through' the favourite residential quarter of Salonika, favour the view that he was taken off by sea, but the strong wind prevailing would have rendered this extremely difficult. The affair took place in the very centre of the fashionable quainter of Salonika,, in the immediate vicinity of the British Consulate-General and several other Consulates, and within a few minutes' walk of the office of the Financial Commission, and the. residence of the In-spector-General, Himli Pasha. Widespread anxiety is felt, and people are asking each other who is to be the next victim, the utter incapacity of the police rendering such enterprises easy, as well as profitable. Little doubt is felt that the captive will be held for ransom, that the brigands will make their ; demands known as, soon as the first hue-arid-cry has somewhat subsided. No clue likely to lead to the discovery of the guilty parties lias yet been found, but in certain Turkish circles the idea is already put forward that: the whole affair has been got up by the-Macobiavel-lian British Government, which wishes to be able to point to the unsettled conditions of the country as a proof of the crying need of a reformed Administratiou.