“HANDS UP!”

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11685, 24 November 1923, Page 4

“HANDS UP!”

MIDNIGHT EPISODE CHEMIST AND HIS WIFE FACE ARMED MAN. INTRUDER ESCAPES. Per Press Association. ASHBURTON, November 23. A midnight hold-up with a gun befel Robert Totty, chemist, apd his wife at 1 o’clock on Monday morning. They were roused from sleep by the rapping at a door. Totty, thinking it was somebody requiring medicine, opened first the bade door and then the front, searched the verandah ineffectively, and! returned to bed. Shortly after he heard a voice outside the wall. Totty was now alarmed and suspicious. He asked : “What do you want ; who are you?” A man’s voice replied: “I want your money.” ' Totty replied, “I have none” ; and tho man then pushed up the window, presented a single-barrelledi gun, and repeated his demand. Both Mr and Mrs Totty sprang from bed, and Mrs Totty ran to the telephone and summoned the police, while her husband cautiously approacbed the intruder with hands up. The stranger then withdrew the firearm and decamped. The police arrived promptly, but so far no capture has been made. The theory is current that the intruder was a weak-minded person.