PETTY THIEVING.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14625, 1 February 1918, Page 4

PETTY THIEVING.

The epidemic of petty thieving continues in the city, and almost daily thefts are reported to the police from various parts. In nearly every case the thefts take place in the day time or early evening when the occupants of houses are absent from home; and tie indications are that the thefts are perpetrated by boys. The other evering a gold watch and a sum of money were reported to have been stolen from a house in Wcimea road, and the day before yesterday the police were informed that a watch and a small sum* of money had been taken from a. residence in Collingwood street. Yesterday a lady reported that a lawn-mower had been taken from ter place, but she subsequertly informed the police that it had been found under the house, whero it had been px.t by the gardener. The most serious affair is reported to have taken place in a house in Nile street on Wednesday evening, when a < young woman who returned home at 9.45 alleges that a man rushed past her as she entered the passage. Ji: this case the occupants left the.house open, the front door being within a few feet o^ the street, paid some person entered and __ stole a sum of money. Nelson rcconje are notoriously careless about locking tleir promises when they go out. If more care was exercised in this direction there would be losr, temptation for misguided individuals to commit offences of the kind referred to.