24 FEBRUARY 1877, Page 3

Another jewel robbery ! This time it is the Duchess

of Cleve- land, who has been robbed of some four or five thousand pounds. The thieves entered the gardens of Battle Abbey while the Duke's family were at dinner, ascended by a ladder against the bedroom floor, and abstracted the jewels from the Duchess's dressing-room, and got clear off, probably to France. Robberies of this kind are rarely discovered, and are in a great measure due to the carelessness of the proprietors of the jewels, who leave their valuable property about, or packed in flimsy morocco cases. It seems very hard to say that a lady should not leave jewels of great value in her own dressing-room, but must be at the trouble of putting them in a safe ; but suppose the jewels were bank-notes. 1Vould even the Duchess of Cleveland leave four or five thousand pounds in notes habitually anywhere except in a strong box P Yet the jewels are as valuable as the notes, are quite as portable, and are less traceable, having no numbers on them. By the way, is it beyond the engraver's art to mark a stone worth, say, £1,000, with a microscopic number, perceptible to any jeweller who buys it ?