POST OFFICE FIRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23930, 4 October 1939, Page 4

POST OFFICE FIRE

MORERE. MYSTERY MAIL THEFT SUSPECTED \ '-?''* '•'■ •■' ■'' (Per tlNiTEi) Press Associa£iqn) ' > ;( '. . ; NAPI?ft, Oct. 3. Aij-fire'Jiwfii'ch, destroyed the Morere Post Offlfc&'arid General Store, causing less Estimated at •■£looo, is suspected by tlhe Napier police to have followed the,-4heft of four mail bags early on Sunday morning/ The post office, a large Wooden, building., was ;found to be ablaze'.by, Mr.'U P. South.';who. conducts . the- 'postal business' in conjunction with a general store. He was unable to enter the .building owing, to the intense neat. Mr South lives in a house 40 yards from the* store. Both the building and' the contents were insured, but the occupier will be a heavy loser, as he was carrying larse stocks.' Mr South was last on- the premises at 8.30 o'clock on Saturday

•n-iffht; • (*W*#< rt • f^» a .->;; VThe chief postmaster in Napier. Mr fi. A. Munn. said that there should R"ve been four mail hags in the post Office. A bag from Gisborne to Morere would have been left there about midJiieht on Saturday, and those from Napier. Wr/roa. and Nuhaka to Morere ftould have been left at about 2.30 ;d'clock in the morning, less than two jfjoiu*q before the outbreak of fire was *io+ed. . ~ . 7 Early witnesses on the scene noticed that a box in which the mail bags are Usually left, and whirh is invariably locked, was open. Nobody pnoears'to have seen any mail bag? inside it.