ILL-GOTTEN GAINS

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1929, Page 2

ILL-GOTTEN GAINS

POSTAL SORTER’S LAPSE. The mysterious disappearance of a necklace of 57 pearls, valued at 6,/00,000 francs (£53,600), which was lost in the post between Paris and London, hdd its sequel in the Seine Assize Court, when Emile Seberac, a postal sorter, who has an excellent official 1 ecord, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for theft. The necklace, properly packed, was sent by registered post by a large jewe - lery .establishment in Rue de la 1 aix, but apparently it got no further than the local sorting office, in which Seberac had to deal with registered packages. Its registration number was transfeiied to another package destined for. London. Seberac’s story is that, while ho was sorting the registered mail, he found the box containing the necklace broken, and slipped the jewel into his pocke , intending to repack it and forwaid. 1 ~ Bu,t he says, he forgot about it, and only six days later remembered it. He then .sent it to his mother, because, he declares, he was afraid that if he had repacked it and sent it on to its propel destination, he would have been blamed tor the delay in transmission. But Seberac’s mother during the past few years has suddenly become ieiy prosperous. She was the widow of a gendarme, and had practically no means, but she now possesses her own house and a couple of farms, and tours the district in her own motor-car. A search of her home revealed a number of other jewels, in addition to the pearl necklace. These had been sent to her by her son, and some, at any rate, are said to correspond with the contents of lost postal packages. Seberac declares that his mother s rise to fortune is attributable entirely to fortunate speculation on the Bourse. The President pressed him closely, however, to account for the fact that he, a modest wage-earner, had had Stock Exchange transactions amounting to at least 3,600,000 francs (£24,000).