28 JANUARY 1899, Page 19

A robbery of unusual magnitude was effected in the City

on Monday, It has been the custom, it appears, in Parr's Bank, a most important establishment, to keep a considerable amount of notes of the Bank of England in a drawer behind the counter at some distance from customers, who can only see it through a grille. On Monday the drawer contained about £100,000, of which £36,000 was in thousand. pound notes, and the rest in those of lesser value. The notes were intact in the afternoon, but some time later on it was found that the drawer had been visited by some one, who had torn out £60,000, including all the large notes, so hurriedly that the cardboard partitions which divide the denominations had been roughly torn away. No one had been seen to enter the Bank, no one of those within it is suspected, and the police are as yet entirely without a clue. The notes have, of course, been "stopped," that is, advertised, but that proceeding is not so fatal to the thieves as is generally imagined, for the Bank of England cannot refuse to cash its own notes if tendered by innocent holders. Great efforts are being made to prevent the notes being deposited in a bank on the Continent or in America, but they will, of course, come back, perhaps as stragglers, perhaps in a lump. We publish elsewhere some theories on the robbery, and need only add here that the thief has found the heavy notes difficult to pass, and with care- fully calculated audacity has sent them back to Parr's Bank.