DAYLIGHT ROBBERY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16448, 3 June 1919, Page 7

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY.

FOOTPADS IN MELBOURNE. ATTACK ON CURATOR. In broad daylight and within thirty yards of his office at the Zoological Gardens at Royal Park, Melbourne, Mr. Dudley Lo Souef, the curator, was attacked by two footpads, blindfolded' with a hessian bag, stunned with a leaden “life preserver,” and robbed of nearly £IOO, which was to bo paid to the staff. Planned witii care and executed with amazing audacity, the purpose of the assailants was effected within thirty seconds, and the two men escaped by dashing through the grounds of the curator’s dwelling. As has been the case in several instances of a similar character in Melbourne within the past two years, the robbers seem to have made themselves thoroughly conversant with tho movements on pay day of the man singled out for attack. There was certainly no hesitation displayed, and tho time of Mr. Le Souef’s return from the bank with the money was judged with remarkable accuracy. For some considerable time it has. been his practice to drive to the Bank in Victoria in Collins Street in a waggonette to draw the wages of the staff employed at the gardens. He was in the habit of leaving his home at a fixed time every Friday. The waggonette in which were Mr. Le Souef and Mr. Arthur Parsons, a returned soldier, who is employed at the gardens as groom, left tho hank shortly after half-past eleven o’clock and a few minutes before 12 drew up outside the gate. Mr. Lo Souef alighted from the vehicle and walked towards the gate, while Mr. Parsons drove the waggonette on to the main entrance. The curator was carrying £B3 in two canvas hags in an inside breast pocket, and in addition held in his hand a gladstone bag. Parsons drove on, and 300 yards from tile gate passed a cart being driven by Henry Meaker, one of the park rangers. When Meaker opened the gate which Mr. Le Souef had passed through not five _ minutes previously he noticed a hessian bag with attached cords lying on the path, also tho ransacked gladstone bag, and close by a very formidable “life preserver” had been hurriedly thrown down. In addition there were blood stains on the ground and every indication of a sharp struggle having taken place. Almost at tho same moment a woman clerk employed in the office went to the door to ascertain if Mr. Lo Souef had returned, and was in time to see him lurching along a path skirting a tennis court with blood streaming from wounds about his head and staining his clothes.

Lying on a couch, with great patches of antiseptic plaster covering several gashes in his heasd, Mr. Le -Souef related what happened when he pushed open the gate. He had no sooner taken two steps inside the fence than a. young man sprang upon him, and enveloped his head in a kind of hessian hood, which was drawn tight about his neck with cords. Simultaneously the leaden life preserver wielded with murderous force by the other man, descended on his head, and, as he reeled under the combined onslaught, Mr. Le Souef says he was dealt three more violent blows about the head, and was badly stunned. The gladstone bag was snatched from his hand, but on being found to contain only business papers was flung down by one of his assailants with an oath. With great rapidity the injured man’s pockets wore rifled and the cash bags located. A strong cord was then passed round his arms by one of the men, and, unable to cry for help owing to the suffocating bag about his mouth, lie was rendered helpless. “That’ll do; we’vo cleared him out,” hissed one of his attackers in a half whisper, and the two men, who, from the fleeting glimpse ho hafl of them, Mr. Le Souef believes are little more than youths, clambered through a fence, and escaped.