The following are the particulars of the impudent robbery at the Dunedin Savings Bank, the supposed perpetrators of which are stated in to-day's telegrams to be now in custody. — It appears that Mr. Edmund Smith, manager of the Dunedin Savings Bank at Lower High-street, was sitting in his office about 1 o'clock, when a person entered the Bank and asked for change of a £5 note, placing that amount upon the counter. Mr. Smith took up the cash-box, which was lying near, and approached the counter opposite to where the man was standing, and opened it with the intention of handing over the change. Just at that moment a knock was heard at the bank door of the room, and the manager placed the cash-box upon the counter, and proceeded to the door, where he was met by another man, also a stranger, who asked if he could have a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Smith. The latter consented, and the stranger thereupon said that complaints had been made about the yard of the bank premises, prolonging the discussion for a few minutes. After the conversation was concluded he left, and Mr. Smith returned to the bank, intending to give the other man, who he thought was still waiting, his change. Upon his return, however, he discovered that the visitor had disappeared, taking with him the cash box, which, we understand, contained about £120. The robbery was exceedingly well planned, for the knock came just at the right moment, and thus afforded the first man every facility to get clear away with the money. The pair must have had designs upon the bank for some time, for they picked upon the time when the clerks were absent, and thus had little difficulty in negotiating the robbery successfully. -Evening Post, 18/8/1890.
THE DUNEDIN SAVINGS BANK ROBBERY.
BY TELEGRAPH. (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.)
DUNEDIN, 17th August. The detectives succeeded last night in running to earth two men suspected of the robbery of a cashbox containing L100 from the Dunedin Savings Bank. The men, who gave their names as James Henry Wilson and Frederick Wilson, are both strangers, and only recently arrived from Melbourne. They are both of respectable appearance, though dressed somewhat loudly. A third man is wanted, and though the detectives say nothing, there is shrewd suspicion that the men were concerned in some robbery in Australia. Mr. Smith, the manager of the Savings Bank, has identified them as two who were at the bank. One asked for change, while the other slipped round to a side door, and, knocking there, attracted the manager's attention while the other secured the cashbox from the desk at the counter and bolted. -Evening Post, 18/8/1890.
DUNEDIN, 3rd December. In the Supreme Court James Henry Wilson and Frederick Remington, charged with the robbery of £100 from the Savings Bank, were found guilty, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment each. -Evening Post, 4/12/1890.
UTILITY OF LAUNDRY EVIDENCE.
An instance of the way in which valuable assistance can be given by laundrykeepers in tracing persons was cited an last night's Post, in connection with a Melbourne child-murder. This calls to mind a case which occurred in Dunedin some twelve years ago in which information obtained from a laundry played an important part. The Dunedin Savings Bank had been robbed by means of what is known as a "call-out job." The staff then on duty at the bank was not large, and, when a well-dressed man went in to ask for change, there was only one official to attend to him. Just at that moment a knock came at the side door, and the official went to attend to it. There a second man appeared, and said: "Look at the filthy state of your premises. It's disgraceful." The bank man, astonished at the intruder's impudence, hotly asked "What's it got to do with you?" But the visitor repeated his assertions, and added: "Come here and look for yourself." Boiling over with mingled rage and astonishment, the official went to look. He spoke plainly to the interrupter, and in a few seconds returned to his counter. There he found that the cash box and handy drawers had been hurriedly rifled and most of the contents were gone. The whole affair had been the outcome of a daring plot, and the robbers got away with a substantial sum of money. Half an hour or so later papers which had been taken were returned by post. The police set to work at once, and Detective McGrath, who was in charge, formed a theory, from the descriptions available, as to the identity of the criminals. There was a third man who had kept watch outside the bank, and all three, who were "known," had been going about well dressed and with faultlessly got-up linen. Thorough enquiries were made at hotels and boardinghouses and places where linen was likely to be put out for starching, but without result, and no trace of the suspected men's whereabouts could be found. Their collars and shirts, however, were still, figuratively speaking, kept in view, and little time was lost in enquiring at laundries. At one of these, the detective learned that washing had been received from three men whose descriptions tallied with those of the persons wanted. Two of them, also, had given names which had been their aliases on a former occasion. These men had left their addresses. Each of them occupied a room in a small cottage in a back street. In these places Detective McGrath succeeded in arresting two of the men, who were duly punished, but the third got away. One of the men convicted, it is interesting to note, is the man who in Paris last year entered the room of a lady for the purposes of robbery, and when she awoke and called for aid, attacked her in a brutal manner, and inflicted terrible injuries. He was a criminal of the most dangerous type, and has a long record in Australia and this colony. Now he is serving a life sentence for his crime in Paris. -Evening Post, 11/2/1902.
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