A PICTURE THIEF.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10782, 2 June 1911, Page 6

A PICTURE THIEF.

VALUABLE BOOKS DESPOILED

(Press Correspondent.) . Wellington, June 1. , The City Librarian to-day received, per medium of the police a parcel containing hundreds' of pictures purloined from valuable library books by a thief, who was recently .convicted and sentenced to t«o years' imprisonment. 4ccording .'"to the .Post,-"tlie plundci could not have hoped to reap any great material profit on his. haul of prints sjnatched from their proper setting m special books. They have little or no, selling value. The thief apparently had a bent toward picture collecting merely for the sake of possessing them. In many cases he had scrawled the name of tile subjetc 011 tlie back of the piciuj#,and he. had taken great care. .to trim- the edges neatly. It seems fairly clear "that he worked by night after the library was closed. No trace of .any entry by window, .was found, ljut it is thought that lie managed to secret him'" self 111 the building before the attend-, ants locked the doors. ' He did not prize literature at all. After abstracting tilt pictures_from costly books he threw the volumes into the sea. More than one detective gave much time and energy to the task of capturing the mysterious thief, for whom, daily watches liad been kept 111 vain. Jn other cases, too, the police have worked hard to check the vandalism and thieving that have worried the library author rities. Tlie recovery of the parcel of pictures is due to the ingenuity of the police. Tlie pictures have had their margins so cut down that -tlioy cannot be restored to -their--.original places, but most of them will lie turned to good acj.lioun t. The best of them will bo remounted and made up ihtfj albums for the children's department. .