MAIL BAG DISAPPEARS

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1931, Page 11

MAIL BAG DISAPPEARS

CONTAINED REGISTERED MAIL LOST ON HAWKE’S BAY RAILWAY. SEARCH PROVES UNAVAILING. By Telegraph—Press Association. Hastings, Sept. 22. What is apparently a mail-bag robbery took place on the 6 o’clock train from Hastings to Napier last evening. A bag containing a quantity of registered mail was missing from the train when it arrived at Napier. There was other mail also in the bag. An officer of the Hastings post office took the mail-bag to the train, and was seen by Mr. Riddel], the proprietor of the station bookstall, to put it in the mail van. It was put in a position of apparent security, and the whole transaction was carried out with the usual care and caution. It was not until the train reached Napier that the loss was discovered, and further investigations led to the belief that the bag was taken before the train left dive, half-way between Hastings and Napier. The police were notified, and official search parties, riding on jiggers and afoot, set out at a very early hour this morning to search the railway line and the land skirting it. There was a hope that the bag might have fallen out of the van on to the side of the line, but a thorough search leads to the conclusion that the hope was in vain. There now seems little doubt that the bag was stolen.