THIEF ACTIVE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22878, 5 November 1937, Page 12

THIEF ACTIVE

HANDBAGS STOLEN

LOSSES IN THEATRES

Further evidence of the activities of a sneak thief in the city has been provided during tho past two weeks by the theft from city theatres of at least six ladies' handbags containing money. While there are isolated cases from timo to time of handbags and other articles being removed from offices temporarily unattended, there were several cases of such thefts in two large city buildings in ono week recently, an attendant in one doctor's consulting rooms losing 112 ]os in a handbag.

The need for the exercise of more caution on the part of women attending picture theatres, especially in the day time, when most of the bags are stolen, has been shown by the operations of the thief during the past two weeks, and they would be well advised to l<eep their bags and purses in their hands. It is not unlikely that a purse could be taken from the lap of a theatre patron during the. more dramatic stages of a film, when tho patron's attention was entirely absorbed in the pictures. The practice of placing bags on a vacant scat also provides the thief with the opportunity he desires, and it is thought that some, of tho bags liavo disappeared in this manner.