EXTENSIVE HOTEL ROBBERIES IN SCOTLAND.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 11021, 11 September 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXTENSIVE HOTEL ROBBERIES IN SCOTLAND.

CAPTURE OP A GANG OF THIEVES IN CARLISLE

The Carlisle city police Lave captured a gang of three young Germans who have been committing a series of daring hotel robberies in Scotland. They were cleverly identified in the street by Policeconstable Edgar, assisted by Patective Black. It appears that on July 4th information was received by the Chief Constable (Mr Mackay) from Edinburgh giving a description of a man who had stayed at an hotel in that city, and was was suspected to have stolen a largo quantity of jewellery. Descriptions wore also given of two othar men «ho were supposed to have been '• working " with the first warned, and had been seen with him in another hotel in Edinburgh. The three men had left Edini-urgh and nothing more was heaid of them unlil last Sunday, when the Carlisle police received a telegram from Stirling giving a vague description of three men who had stayed at an hotei there, an-1 had decamped with jewellery ti the value of quite £120. They had iv fact, cleared the place out, and had forced open a jewel drawer. TIII3 description of the men seemed to correspond with the description previously received from Edinburgh. A sharp lookout was kept and the men were arrested in Courtsqnate, near the station. On the way to the police station one of the gang threw something off the wejt wall into the pinfold, and on an officer being sent to search for it he found a valuable diamond brooch, containing twelve atones, set in a circle, and worth at least £70. This brooch is believed to have been stolen from an hotel in Glasgow. After being arrested, the men were searched, and a great quantity ol jewellery reported as stolen from the hotel at Stirling was found in their pockets. They gave the following names and addresses to the police: — Henri Friedricksen, aged twenty, of 53, Boraig-street, Berlin; Bruno Kohler, aged twenty, and Oskar Kahler, aged sixteen, both of Hamburg. They had reached Carlisle from Rothesay At eight o'clock on Wednesday night, and had taken rooms at the Bush Hotel. Among the articles found ©n the prloners and among their luggage when searched and at the Bush Hotel were a number of gold and silver watches, a gold bracelet sat with pearls and worth £12, a pocket barometer, set of saltcellars in case, ladies' dressing cases, open, glases, silver brushes, ssent bottles, bunches of keyß, a screw-driver, a French-German dictionary, several German books, Baedeker's Guide to Paris, and other articles too numerous almost to mention. In a small leather trunk belonging to the prisoners the police also found a six chambered revolver fully loaded, and a five-chambered revolver not loaded. The prisoners have been brought before a magistrate, and remanded until the arrival of the Scotch police.