WELL KNOWN TO THE POLICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14150, 27 August 1909, Page 6

WELL KNOWN TO THE POLICE.

A WARATAH PASSENGER.

[BY telegraph.—own correspondent.]

Wellington, Thursday. Amongst the passengers on the missing ocean liner Waratah is a dangerous criminal, named John McLoughlin, who is well known to the police in various part 6 of the world, including New Zealand. His voyage on the overdue vessel is not one of pleasure. He is being conducted from Queensland to Africa under the guardianship of two constables of the Transvaal police. For nearly 14 years the police of South Africa had searched for him, and finally he was arrested last March on a steamer on the Brisbane River on a charge of having murdered two men in Johannesburg in 1895. The crime at the time it was perpetrated created a sensation throughout the whole of civilised South Africa. . The New Zealand police had some dealings with McLoughlin (or McLachlan). He came into this country with a reputation of being a notorious cracksman and safe-robber at Johannesburg, and, as he was a miner there, that was how it was that he had a good knowledge of explosives. He arrived in Auckland from India by the s.s. Mt. Sirion, and on November 25, 1895, was sentenced, under the name of Thomas Kenny, to 12 months' imprisonment for having housebreaking implements in his possession. For a similar offence he was sentenced in 1897, under the name of Thomas Kenny, alias John Dell, to three years in gaol. Again he was sentenced in Lyttelton to 14 days' imprisonment for being a stowaway. He left Christchurch on November 10 last by train, going south. He had a kit of tools with him and intended travelling round the country doing tinsmithing work. He had' also been doing the back blocks as a cook. Some time after, he was heard of as being an inmate of a prison in Queensland. McLachlan, although minus one hand, was apparently never hampered on that score in his cracksmanship efforts. It is stated that sometimes he used in the course of his "profession" a false hand screwed on to his wrist.