THE CONFIDENCE MAN

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2311, 19 November 1914, Page 9

THE CONFIDENCE MAN

HOW COLONIALS IN LONDON ARE CAJOLED. As is very well known by travellers, the "confidence men" of .London are ever on the look-out for. newcomers to England from the overseas Dominions, and have sea extraordinary stock of devices, whereby tho unwary are entrapped into lending money to people apparently in the direst distress. One of the most popular and artful methods is for. the applicant to exhibit an intimate knowledge of.the traveller's home-town and its, people, which ie gained by the et-udy of local directories, newspapers, and ne'er-do-wells from tho town who aro members of the slim gang at work. The war, and the manner in which it has placed so many people in a state of temporary impecuniosity at Home ie being used as a means of extorting, money. One eucli letter, addressed to Mr. J. 'H. Holliwell, secretary of the Wellington.Gas Co. (who has just returned from England), shows the artfulness of the writer. The letter reads as follows:—

"Dear Sir, —Found out you were in London through a gentleman who showed me your nnme in the 'Australian and Canadian World' on Saturday. I made my way. as quickly as possible, but Mr. Terry was not in, so am writing this note. with Mr. Terry's kind permission in his office. . Now, four weeks ago I came down the Rhuie by the Hook of Holland, and at Rotterdam, whikt getting a wash before I got on the boat for Harwich, had £75 stolen out of my overcoat pocket. I cabled my. son to send mo £s(Hhrough Cook's, as I wanted the letter to prove my identity, ae I had lost all my papers besides. This money ie due here next Wednesday week. In tho meantime I havo spent my. last shilling, and have had to dis-, pose of my watch and chain to pay my expenses. I havo not a eoul I know bore, as I have been in Now Zealand and Australia for fifty years, so I wish ydu to be so kind as to let me havo a small loan to keep me until I get my money. I don't care how small if I have only a bed and a meal a day. Dr. Rawson ordered me the trip, as I. have not been well for years. Have, known jou for 26 years: I was the man who found poor Squire Barlow's body at the Te Aro House fire, Cuba Street, in 1888 or about that. lam related to J. Hall Flockton, and I believe you come from Yorkshire, as I once or twice spoke to. jou about-Yorkshire. It would havo pleased me better if we could have met tace to face, but don't refuse me. As I say, if it is only for a meal and a bed a day. Kindly roply by return post; With my best regards,—l remain, yours faithfully, Henry Wilson. Address— H. Wilson, care Post Office, Aore Lane, Brixton, London." " Plausibility itself! But there are one or two defects tlrnb point to fraud at once.. In the first place Mr. Helliwell, whose memory is an excellent one, could not Tecall any Henry .Wilson "who had known him for 26 years," and Mr. J. Hall Flockton (who never signs his namo that way) lias no relation of the name. If Mr. Wilson was fifty years in Australia and New Zealand, how old was he when he first came out? If lie was a young man of twenty, his age would be seventy, and there are comparatively .few colonials of 70 years or thereabouts who float about the Rhino by themselves, and have no one in all London to identify tlie.ni. The reference to Dr. Rawson mid the death of Mr.. Barlow is decidedly ingenious. It just shows tp what lengths such men will go to add "verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative", (as W. S. Gilbert put it).