Cuckfield: Housebreaking
On Tuesday night some thieves broke into the White Hart Inn (Mrs Stubberfield's) by forcing open the shutter, a hinged one, of the bar window, into which room they got and seem to have forced open the money till with a pair of sugar nippers lying on the counter. They took about £2 in coin, nearly all pence. They also opened and disturbed the contents of another drawer and a workbox, took down a bottle of bitters and helped themselves, leaving a bottle and cork on the table.
They also displaced the cigar boxes, emptying one nearly half full of its contents and carrying away a bottle of peppermint. By aid of a key, they got into the cellar, from whence they took about four or five lbs of cooked bacon; they seem to have eaten a small quantity of it, from the appearance of a small bone, freshly gnawed; they left behind part of a loaf of bread and a bottle of cordial. Letting themselves out by the back door they threw away part of a rush candle in the yard and decamped. The thieves are still at large.
Surrey Gazette - Tuesday 12 March 1867
Contributed by Malcolm Davison.