RAID ON CARD PARTY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19050, 1 July 1924, Page 10

RAID ON CARD PARTY.

MONEY AND JEWELS STOLEN ARMED AND MASKED ROBBERS. TOTAL VALUE OF £2OO. An amazing armed robbery of a private party by four men occured in a building near a railway station near Melbourne on the night of Sunday, June 15. Money, jewellery, watches and chains valued at over £2 00 were stolen. The seven men who made up the party were searched by the robbers at the point of revolvers, and were relieved of all the jewellery and money that could be found about their cloth ing. The robbers missed £lOO in notes, which one man stuffed in his mouth just before they were ordered to put up their hands. Ono shot was fired, but no one was injured. The occurence took place in the premises of Mr. R. M. Conroy, hairdresser and tobacconist. The building is one of a row of two-storey shops in the most frequented part of tho street. The business is conducted on th ground floor, and the upper floor is used as a residential apartment. Here, according to Mr. Conroy’s account of the affair, parties are usually held on Sunday nights. Some of the guests had gone home by 11 o’clock, and Harry Bird, a jockey, went downstairs to use the telephone in the room below. Bird called out, “Con, there is a ring at the door.” MEN ARMED WITH REVOLVERS. “I told him to sec who it was,” Mr. Conroy continued. “To his consternation Bird was confronted by two masked men armed with revolvers. ‘Hands up and say nothing’ one of them ordered him, pressing the barrel of his revolver against Bird’s chest. ‘Lead the way upstairs and keep quiet,’ the man added. In the dining room upstairs the remainder of the party were having a good time. We had tho gramophone on, and I was singing. A couple of chaps were having a game 'of Coon Can for penny points. Suddenly the door was pushed open. The next thing we heard was a command, ‘Hands up all of you, and don’t move,’ I said, ‘Here, what’s the joke?’ thinking some pals were playing a trick on us, but to show that there was no joke about it, oue of the men fired his revolver. The bullet entered the wall, making a big hole in the plaster. “By this time two other men, also armed and masked, had come in. One man locked the door and stood on guard over it. Another stood, with his revolver ready to shoot, in tho middle of the room. The two others ordered us to line against tho wall, and, keeping us covered with their revolvers, began to search us. I was wearing a valuable ring, but managed to get it off above my head and drop it down the back of my neck. We were then ordered to vacate the wall, and though the ring had stuck in my collar, the robbers missed it. They took some notes from my pocket.”

Mr. Conroy continued:—-“Fred Foulsham, the trainer, was not so lueky. They took his diamond ring, worth £7O. Charlie Cayloek, who is also a well-known racing' man, had a £5O note and five £lO notes in a pocket. As soon as he saw how things were shaping he stuffed the notes into his mouth. One of the robbers took out Cayloek’s watch and examined it. "Only a fivebob watch,’ he said. ‘You can keep it.’ Cayloek kept quiet, because the notes prevented him from speaking. The robbers were in the room for about 15 minutes. When they had finished with us they told us not to move for five minutes. Then they locked us in and went. They also broke open my cash register and took 35s from it. They also took a quantity of tobacco and cigars. The thieves got about £4O in notes, the balance was made up with jewellery and other valuables. HOW THE MEN ARRIVED Mr. Fred Foulsham said that he saw the four men arriving. One walked down from the railway station; another came down the road and stood near the garage, alongside the hairdresser’s shop, while two others appeared suddenly and stood at the door. Later a car arrived, and kept passing up and down in front of the building while the men were inside. The robbers got away in a fast motor-car, but one man, who was identified by tho card players, was subsequently arrested. The detectives are of the opinion that the raid w'as made by the same gang as that which robbed a “poker” school in a southern suburb on the night of Sunday, March 31. in similar circumstances, and stole £BO from the players. The victims were warned on the occasion that “it would be unsafe to move from the premises for at least a quarter of an hour.”