BURGLARY FEAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19840, 14 May 1927, Page 14 (Supplement)

BURGLARY FEAT

BY PEER’S BROTHER “LAUGHED SO THAT HE FELL OVER THE CAT.” LONDON, April Hi. Captain the Hon. Lancelot Lowther, brother of the Earl of Lonsdale, has been playing the part of an amateur Raffles. In an interview yesterday he told why and how he did it. Piquancy is given to his exploit ;>y the fact that he is a magistrate, not only for Rutland, but also for Cumberland and Westmoreland. His family motto is “Magistratus Indicat Virum” (the office shows the man ). Captain Lowther Jives at Oakham, the county town of Rutland, and an enforced wait there early one foggy morning tempted him to play a joke on a gunsmith friend, Mr. J. E. Whitehouse, at his place in the Market Place, Oakham.

“I am always up at 6 a.m.,” explained Captain Lowther, “and (hat morning I went into Oakham to meet a man. Ho did not turn up, and, after strolling about, I said to my Chauffeur, ‘Let’s burgle Whitehouse’s shop and frighten the son.’ “You’ll Get Six Months.” “I borrowed a diamond, and we took a piece of glass out of a window. It fell on the drawing-room floor. L pulled up the catch and got in, but 1 nearly split my sides with laughing. “I. went to the front door and unlocked it to make it appear rs though Whitehouse had not locked up properly. The man who helped me said, “You entered the house very well.’ “I said, ‘You silly fool. I’m a magistrate, ami you’ll get six months for this job.’ He took to his heels ind ran for his life'. 1 laughed until I “When I got upstairs I heard someone say, ‘Harry! Harry! There’s a burglar downstairs- 1 said, ‘Yes. it’s me—Captain Lowther. I’m the burglar.’ Harry Whitehouse came out with his hair standing on end, and said, ‘Good heavens, how did you get in?’ “An Expert Job.” “I fell downstairs with laughing, tripped over the eat and upset the milk. “I immediately rang up the police station and took the officials into my confidence. A constable who examined the shop said an expert burglar could not have done the ‘job’ better.” Captain Lowther, who will be 60 in' June, was formerly a captain in the Border Regiment. In .1911 he was train bearer at the coronation of King George V. Captain Lowther will not be charged with housebreaking. Proceedings wr * not justified, said the chief constable of Rutland, as the matter was only a joke.