INGENIOUS SWINDLING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1090, 20 April 1883, Page 4

INGENIOUS SWINDLING.

f From Otago"J)aily firms.) Cases which have been recently heard in the Supreme Court, charging Thomas Dobbie and others with the theft of sewing-machines, have only partially muds public what was undoubtedly a very audacious and care-fnlly-planned system of fraud. In this instance the culprits have taken advantage of the opportunity offered by the extensive sale of sewingmachines to the poorer classes on time-payments. This practice, it will be seen, offers some loophole for an enterprising thief who has the time and the opportunity to organise a set plan, and who can obtain the services of fitting accomplices. The principal weakness in the system of robbery which has just been disclosed, lay in part in the number of accomplices which the conspirators were compelled to employ, but this circumstance also rendered it more difficult to trace the frauds to their actual originators. The Wertheim and Singer Sewingmachine to |have been the moat extensive sufferers; and although so long as eight or nine months ago it became patent that frauds were being practised, it is only now that one of the chief offenders has been convicted and punished. Mr Lochhead, manager ' in Dunedin for the Wertheim Company, noticed many months ago the singular increase in the number of defaulters on his books—that is to say, persons whose small original deposit had been paid, who had received a machine, and subsequently failed to maintain their periodical payments. On investigation it was generally found that these people had left their former places of residence, perhaps almost immediately after the machine had been delivered, and the difficulty then was to trace them and ascertain their whereabouts. The number of these cases was altogether 100 large to suggest the idea of merely individual dishonesty on the part of the defaulters. The operations bore far more the appearance of an organised scheme, as in most instances falsenames had been given. Todiscover the absconders in isolated cases would have been of little use, unless the manner in which the machines were -disposed of could also be brought to light. The police were not in a position apparently, upon such grounds -of suspicion as could be alleged, to take the matter up, and as a conse- < quence Mr Lochhead and persons in his employ were compelled to resort 'to amateur detective work. Eesults for a long time were somewhat barren and very confusing. To track •-out one lesser offender and endeavour to cajole or frighten the truth out of him appeared simply to elicit a string • of falsehoods and some half-dozen names which might or might not belong to persons implicated in the transaction. The object, of course, being to discover and regain the missing machines if possible, as well as bring the thieves to justice, it may well be imagined that the work of the amateur detectives was not light. Suspicion early pointed at one or two of the principal instigators, ‘but to actually catch them in flagrante, delicto was a work that required patience as well as vigilance. A few stray sewing machines were discovered, a good many confessions heard, and vm immonse number of disappointments experienced. However, eventually the plan of operations was gradually laid bare, and a very ingenious one it prove'd. , Numbers of the applicants for sewing machines on time-payments weie shown to be merely agents acting on the instructions of Dobbie or others. The latter would in some instances provide their emissaries with the trifling deposit fee required, give them perhaps half a-sovereign , for their trouble, and remove the machine almost as soon as it was delivered. Occasionally, part of the scheme was also the temporary furnishing of one or two rooms in a respectable style, as the employes of the Company invariably take stock in this respect of any place where a machine is to be sent. , The respectability of the purchasers was in a manner gauged by the appearance of their abode, and this proving satisfactory the transaction would generally be completed. However, a day or two, afterwards theneat oilcloth, chairs, and tables would have all disappeared, to reappear after a time in some other tenantless shanty where a sewing machine was wanted. The removal of these machines after delivery was also gone about with the utmost circumspection. The confederates had, it appears, a cab dedicated entirely to their service, and in this vehicle the machines would be removed in pieces after dark. A code of signals was also arranged on nearing the place to which they were to be conveyed. A light on one side of the cab meant that the vehicle was returning duly freighted with the machine or machines it went to bring, and there were . return signals to indicate whether or no it were safe at the moment to smuggle the spoil inside the premises. Unco in the shop of Dobbie, of at any o'her place of reception, the numbers stamped on the machine were filed down and altered in a way that was intended to render identification impossible. The machine could be recognised as a Wertheim ot a Singer, but the seekers would be unable to say to whom it was sold. This design was, however, frustrated, as far as the Werlheim machines were concerned, by the fact

of the number being impressed in two places—a fact of which the thieves wore ignorant Thus altered, it was the practice to convey a good many of the macliines to country districts, where they were resold. In addition to the system detailed above, other devices fpi| obtaining possession of machines were sometimes placed in requisition. The confederates would occasionally discover, perhaps, that payments were a little behindhand with some person who had been provided with a machine by one of the companies. They would then openly drive to the door, represent themselves as sent by the company to remove the machine, and take it away with them then and there. The whole system was well contrived and executed, and it is not surprising that was a long time reaching the wrongdoers.