LOST FROM SERVICE CAR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18590, 28 December 1934, Page 4

LOST FROM SERVICE CAR

BAGS CONTAINING £225

£l9B RECOVERED

ANONYMOUS FINDER

Of sums of money totalling £225 lost from the Gisborne-Whatatutu service car last Saturday, £l9B has now been recovered. 'Jhc money represented the change required for the Christmas Eve rush of business by Gregory, Limited, and the Wliatatutu Hotel, one bag containing £l5O being for the store, and the other containing £75 for the hotel. The latter bag was found on the road on the same day, and was returned to the hotel, and of the £l5O, the firm of Gregory, Limited, received £123 by last evening’s mail from an anonymous finder, leaving £27 still unaccounted for. The driver of the service car was given cheques for £l5O and £75 to cash for the store and hotel respectively on Saturday morning, and these he cashed at the bank when he reached Gisborne, tlie £l5O being made up of £1 and 10s notes to the value of £125, and £25 in silver. The money for the store and the hotel was placed in two separate canvas bags, which for security the driver put in the built-in luggage box at the back of the car, and locked Hie door.

While in town, the driver was not absent from the car for more than three minutes, and had it under observation practically the whole of the, time; nor did he make any stops on the road from Gisborne to Wliatatutu, but on arrival at his destination lie found that both bags bad disappeared. New floor-boards had been placed in the luggage box about a month previously, and were not nailed or bolted down, and as one of these boards was found lying across the floor of the box, it is believed that it bad been dislodged by the jolting of the car, and that the money must have fallen through the aperture on to the road. This belief was confirmed by the fact that the bag containing the £75 was found lying on the Puha-Wliatatutu road by a Maori boy, who handed it to the police the same day. After discovering the loss of the money, the driver of the car went back over his route, but a close inspection of the road, and the fullest inquiries en route failed to reveal any sign of the missing bag. The loss was advertised, and a substantial reward was offered, but nothing was heard of the money

until last evening, five and a-half days after it was lost, - ,i

By yesterday afterncfoi/’s mail from Gisborne, Gregory, Limited, received a small and very dirty brown-paper parcel which was found to contain £123 in notes. There was no letter to ex plain the return of the money, and from the appearance of the address on the parcel it was evident that the sender had disguised his handwriting.