ROBBERY UNDER ARMS

Otago Witness, Issue 3105, 17 September 1913, Page 27

ROBBERY UNDER ARMS

SYDNEY, September 15. A daring crime was committed at Broken Hill on Sunday night. Two masked and armed men held up the Broken Hiil-to-Adelaide express between the Sulphide Street station and the Railway tow r n station, and got away with two cash boxes containing between £IOO and £l5O in notes, gold, and silver The distance between the two platforms is only a mile. The hold-up was cleverly planned. The Silverton Tramway Company is accustomed to send large amounts from Sulphide street to Railway town on Sunday nights. The company controls the line from Broken Hill to the border. A ticket clerk named M‘Guire depotiled the cash boxes in the guard’s van, and M'Guire, the guard (Finlayson), and the assistant guard (Haines) remained in the van. The express departed at 8.30 p.rn., and had gone only two chains, when the two masked men jumped aboard and crawled along the footboard to the van. They smashed the windows with an iron bar, presented their revolvers, and yelled ; “ Hands up i” One desperado remarked to the other : “Keep them covered while I get in; if you have any rot from them shoot. ’’ He scrambled in and •hurled the cash boxes out of the window, and then got out. Then the pair jumped off the train, which was going slowly, picked up the boxes, and rushed through an adjacent w r ood vard.

A lady passenger saw them disappear in the darkness.

All this happened almost in the town. A porter saw the robbers leave the train, and he pursued them, but fruitlessly. The police immediately scoured tire district, but success.