NEWCOMERS’ ILL FORTUNE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 45, 17 November 1926, Page 4

NEWCOMERS’ ILL FORTUNE

ROLL OF BANKNOTES LOST POCKET MAY HAVE BEEN PICKED Dominion Special. Auckland, November 16. Many are the tales that have been told of hard blows that fate has dealt some newcomers to the Dominion, but the loss of a considerable sum of money is not a common experience However, it is the experience that today befell Mr. R. D. .Stephenson, of 8, Kensington Avenue, off Dominion Road. He lost a roll of banknotes of a total value of £360 between half-past two and four o’clock in the afternoon, either in the lower end of Queen Street or in a Dominion Road tram-car. Mr. Stephenson arrived from Canada on the Aorangi just over a week ago to make his home in this country. The introduction to his new home therefore has not been very encouraging. The money he lost .consists of a draft for £3OO drawn by the Union Bank of Canada on the Bank of Australasia, two £lO Bank of New Zealand notes, four £5 notes, four £1 notes, one 20 dollai bill of the Canadian • Bank of Commerce and three 10 dollar and four 2 dollar Canadian bills. They were in a roll bound by an elastic, band, as is the custom in the United States and Canada. Mr. Stephenson is not clear as to how he lost the notes, but he has taken measures for their recovery, including an offer cf a £lO reward." He was carrying the roll in his left hand trouser pocket, and the last occasion on which he i emembers seeing •'it was in the Chief Post Office at about half past two. Afterwards .he went into the bar of the Waverley Hotel, but came out almost immediately and went up Queen Street on the left hand side looking for a shop, where he bought some films. He caught a tramcar soon after at the corner of Queen Street and Customs Street. Arriving at his home at about 4 o’clock, he realised that the roll was missing He immediately informed the police and rang ' up the bank to have the draft .‘■topped.

Mr. Stephenson is of opinion that it would have been difficult for him to. lose the roll of bills from his pocket, but it would not have been impossible. The only other alternative is that his pocket was picked, and he thinks this not unlikely. He remembers being jostled in the Waverly Hotel bar, and* could possibly identify the man who jostled him. ’