Caught Napping.

Otago Witness, Issue 2252, 29 April 1897, Page 52

Caught Napping.

I witnessed & remarkable pieoa of coolheaded daring at the Exchange Station, Liverpool, not long ago (writes a correspoa- xdenfc).

I was walking along, when my attention was attracted by cries of " Stop thief 1 Stop thief !" and, looking round, b?held a crowd pursuing a man some 20 yards in the foreground. With the crowd I at once gave chase, and b&d almost;

run him down when he gave a sudden turn, and bolted down the street ; but I leave you to judge of our surprise when upon turning the corner wo saw the object of our pursuit some 200 yards along the road !

' ' Springheel Jack," shouted come. "He has wings," declared others ; but our policeman knew better. "Hold on, mister," he said to me, " I may want your assistance ; " and, turning to an avchway where two or three labourers were, asleep, he dexterioualy slipped the hand-cuff-i upon a slumberer.

"I knew," he said afterwards, "that it was an impossibility to jump 200 yards at » stroke. The man the crowd saw was not our prisoner. It was a clever device on the part of the thief, who, seeing this mm running on in front and those labourers asleep in the archway, grasped the situation, and, dropping in with the labourers, affected sleep. He's an old 'an, though, gee how hard it was to rouse him ! "