FEWER BIG CRIMES OCCURRING IN CITY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19134, 29 July 1930, Page 6

FEWER BIG CRIMES OCCURRING IN CITY.

MOTOR-CAR AND BICYCLE THEFTS STILL PREVALENT The many captures made by the local police at the start of the winter have apparently acted as a strong check on casual law-breakers, for apart from three or four burglaries, crime in the city lately has been of a very minor nature. While there has been a falling off in the number of bigger indictable crimes, the Court has had to deal recently with a large number of charges of theft and conversion of cars. There has been no slackening off, either, in the ; number of bicycles stolen or converted. ! Every day brings one or more persons to the Central Police Station complaining of lost bicycles. “It is mainly carelessness on the part of the owners which is the cause of all these thefts," said one police officer. “Locked bicycles arc rarely taken. This carelessness is illustrated c\ n more by the way in which people ! leave bicycles that have been recovered at the station for months without troubling to reclaim them. A large number of people never call again after they have reported a loss. A bicycle is a very hard thing to id**n?' by a description, so we cannot always let the owner know that his bicyoe is ( here. Why, I have known men who could not even identify their own machines."