GUARDING A MILLION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19847, 23 May 1927, Page 9

GUARDING A MILLION

ESCORT GETS A SCARE A ROMANTIC STORY. The public of Sydney, outside of a comparative few bank officials, have yet Jto learn tho romantic story of how, only a few days ago, £1,000,000 was brought from Melbourne to Sydney by Commonwealth Bank officials. It was negotiable wealth, in sove- j reigns. The coin was brought by or- 1 dinary train in 200 boxes of £5OOO each, making a total weight of nearly nine tons. This was carried in an or- . dinary small railway van, with four 1 bank officers, two messengers, and two 1 policemen as escorts. Instructions were that, In the case of | trouble, the policemen were to fire first. ' The others, sitting figuratively on a' million, took some comfort from the ; fact that, to fire first, the policemen ■ must necessarily be in front. This vast quantity of glittering gold was loaded in Melbourne and landed in Sydney without the public knowing of it, of course. The members of the escort were locked up securely with the gold in the van. By the time the es- i cort reached Euroa, the old home of tho notorious Kelly gang of bushrangers, tho tenjooraturo in tho van was more than 100 degrees. At this point tho escort got a scare. I Ono of the end doors of the van flew ! open. Two men revealed themselves in I tho darkness of the night, one with a j torch, which looked extraordinarily i like a gun, and the other carrying an iron bar. They were two of the train gang, trying to get through to inform the engine-driver that half tho couplings on the third carriage had carried away, and that if he did not pull up there was the very big possibility of a railway smash. The train camo to a stop at a lonely spot which looked ideally situated for a hold-up. The members of the escort slept upon rugs laid upon the gold. One man, of big proportions, covered about £200,000 in this way. That £1,000,000 is to-day safely in tho vaults of the Commonwealth Bank.