BURGLARY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 185, 23 November 1876, Page 2

BURGLARY.

The premises of Mr. Thompson, butcher, of Tecs-street, were broken into last night, a desk forced, and a cash-box containing £~j 3a. abstracted therefrom. From what we can learn from the shopman, the premises'were locked up at the tisur.l hour last evening—half-past sis—the door between the shop and the salting-down room behind being left open, as also was a window in the back room, for the purpose of keeping the place cool. The ground at the back of the house has been excavated, to allow of the erection of the building, and as a consequence, the hill at the rear is almost level with the window. By this means the robbers easily effected an entrance into the salting room, and their wa}" being open thence to the shop, they prized open tne desk with a butcher's large knife, and carried away the cashbox and its contents. When the shopman came this morning at half-past seven, on going to the desk, he found the bo?ts wrenched half off, and, of course, the box gone. Information was immediately given to the police, and Sub-Inspector M'Cluskey and Sergeant Carroll examined the place, and learnt all the details with the view of discovering the perpetrators. About eleven oclock to-day, however, some boys discovered the missing cash-box on the railway grounds, at the rear of Mr. Maude's store. It was lying in a battered condition, and it is needless to say, empty,

beside a quantity of heavy railway bolts, the lid all smashed in, and from its general appearance it was quite evident that a some blunt instrument, probably one of the bolts in question, had been used in battering it open. The police are industriously prosecuting a search for the roober, but we cannot allow the opportunity of pointing out the very great disadvantages the Inspector in charge of the town labors under, in the small number of men placed at his disposal. For the whole place there are only seven men, one of those being a sergeant, another a mounted constable, and a third the keeper of the gaol, so that strictly speaking there are but four men available for active duty. We understand that to keep pace with the growth of the place, it has been found necessary to obviate the difficulty met with in the paucity of men, by calling upon the constables to do twelve instead of eight hours' duty. This is a threefold injustice. It is unfair to the officer in charge of the district, for although he is responsible for the protection of property and good order of the town, he is not supplied with the means of carrying out his duties. It is unfair to property holders, who are taxed so that a proper guardianship may be exercised over their premises ; and, lastlj r , it is an injustice to the constable in asking him to perform a day and a half's labour in the twenty-four hours. We trust that such representation will be made to Mr. Commissioner Welden as will at once cause him to have the local force supplemented to such an extent that the officer in charge will not lind himself crippled in the present manner. It is just possible that the Commissioner may not be aware of the rapid strides our town has been making in the matter of population, and as a necessary sequence with an increase of people follows the [ urgent need of increased police protection.