On the evening of the [1st?] of last month, a daring assault and robbery took place in Arbroath in the following manner:—[Mr.] Carnegie, watchmaker, being at some distance from his shop, his two apprentice lads were in the habit of carrying the watches in a case to the house for security in the evening; but on the occasion in question, they were suddenly seized by the throat on the road, and thrown down [and] during their momentary insensibility, the [thieves] managed to escape with the case containing the watches which were valued at about 200l. No trace was got of the thieves till Monday last, when M’Levie, the head [criminal] officer in our police establishment, having [heard that] a man named M’Kenna had been offering a watch [in] pledge at a pawnbroker’s that day, proceeded in the evening to his mother’s house in the Grassmarket with a view of seeing if any trace was to be found of the missing property. He saw two men at the [door?] of M’Kenna’s house, whom he immediately [suspected] to be the thieves, and having seized one of them… ran away, but was pursued by criminal officer [Laidlaw?] [and] observed him throw away a watch. The fellow was captured by the officer, and the watch recovered. [Mr.] Carnegie having been acquainted with the circumstances arrived in town on Thursday, and identified the [watch as] one of those which had been stolen from his shop. The men on Friday morning were sent off [to jail?] under the charge of officers from Dundee, but [no] trace has been obtained of the rest of the property [until] Saturday evening, Mr. Moxey, with [officers] M’Levie, Milligan, and Macpherson, succeeded in finding in a house in the Grassmarket forty-one of the watches, silver chains, &c. The watches were found packed in hay, covered by a piece of packsheet… and there was every reason to believe that the parcel was left last Monday in the house in question by the lads apprehended the same night, named James [M’Kenna?] and Alexander Clark, the former of whom is the keeper [of] a lodging house in the Overgate of Dundee.—Edinburgh Advertiser.

Morning Post Thursday, Mar. 28, 1850