ROBYN PARKES
Mild excitement was created in Motueka in October 1908 with the discovery, in the kitchen garden attached to the Post Office Hotel, of what was thought to be the proceeds of a robbery that took place several months previous at the Swan Hotel.
Mr J Wallace, and Hutchinson, an employee at the hotel, were working in the garden where Hutchinson was given instructions to clean up the path round a pampas bush near the gate.
Hutchinson, on carrying out his work, found silver amounting to £8. He immediately notified Wallace of the discovery and with another search they found another sum of £8 not far from the first find.
With a suspicion that this money could be connected to a burglary, another search found £3, 7s a few feet away, in all making an amount of £19, 7s, almost the same amount of the money that was stolen from the Swan Hotel.
This was the final chapter in the burglary saga. Back in June 1908, George Bland was charged with stealing £20 from Frederick Talbot of the Swan Hotel.
Although he denied the charge and the money was not recovered at that time, the evidence was substantial with several witnesses pointing to his guilt. Bland was a cook, having been in the service of Union Company and then later in Australia.
He returned to New Zealand, moved to Motueka and boarded at the Swan Hotel from 12 May. Up to the 8 June he had not paid for any board. Bland was sharing a room with three other men, Charles Peters and Messrs Rowling and Shaw. On the evening of the 8th of June, Bland and two other men entered the bedroom around 10.20 with a bottle of gin.
Charles Peters, a veterinary surgeon was in bed and had just turned out the light, so was witness to the events. The men left, as did Bland without a light, but he returned, got a candle and left again. He returned around five minutes later; at which time Peters heard the rattle of money and saw Bland emptying the contents of two tins into his pockets. Bland put his boots on and left the bedroom.
Peters got up, and on finding some silver on the floor went in search of the licensee, Frederick Talbot, to inform him.
Constable Pigeon was called to the Swan to investigate. In Talbot’s bedroom a drawer was found to have been forced open, supposably by a pair of scissors found at the scene.
The locked drawer was where Talbot had £17 in large silver and around £19 in sixpences and threepences in five tobacco tins, and 30s in sixpences made up in three separate parcels of 10s each. All the tins were missing along with two of the 10s parcels. A further search outside the hotel resulted in the find of four of the tins. Another witness saw Bland throwing away a tin.
Bland was arrested and taken to the Police Station where, on a search, a handkerchief belonging to Talbot’s wife was found on him. The case was heard in the Supreme Court in July and once both the prosecution and defence had wrapped up their cases the Judge retired, coming back with a guilty verdict and a sentence of nine months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
