ROBBERY UNDER ARMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21837, 27 December 1932, Page 7

ROBBERY UNDER ARMS

SENSATION AT BALCLUTHA CASHIER HELD UP THIEF’S SMALL HAUL , While Christmas shopping was at its busiest in Balclutha at about 10 o’clock on Saturday night a masked robber entered the premises of Messrs W. Guest and Sons, Ltd., in Clyde, street, held lip the cashier at the point of a revolver, and, grabbing a handful of notes from the partly-open drawer of the cash register, made off without being identified. The cashier, Miss Grace Cameron, thought that one of the younger Guest boys, several of whom were temporarily assisting during the rush of trade, was playing a joke on her, and with that idea in mind she reached forward and lifted the hat from the head of,the intruder. She was still urider that impression when he made off by, way of the back entrance, which abuts on to the passage leading to the office, where the robbery took place. It , was not until several minutes had elapsed that Miss Cameron realised that an actual robbery had been perpetrated.

A TALL. FAIR MAN The intruder was a tall man, with fair hair, and his face was masked by a long black scarf tied over his bead, with two slits for eyeholes., He walked in through the back entrance, and when he entered the office, of which Miss Cameroii was the sole occupant, he pointed a revolver straight at her With a curt, “Hands up!” As the, drawer of the cash register was partly open, it was a simple matter for him to seize a 'handful of notes, but his departure was probably hastened by the cashier’s action in removing his hat, his haul representing only a very small proportion of the amount of money in the drawer, which is understood to have totalled several hundreds of pounds. The affair caused a sensation in Balclutha, for although burglaries have been fairly- common in recent years—in fact, this is the third occasion on which Messrs Guest and Sons’ ’premises have been entered during the past year, oi, two—it was the first time that such a daring hold-up had been carried out with the streets brightly lit and crowded with Christmas shoppers. The police have the matter' in hand, but us yet have no clue to the identity of the robber. ,