NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 July 1924, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

NF.W Fit I ENDS: OLD TALK: LONDON. J itno ‘2,

Confidence tricksters arc reaping a rieh harvest among visitors to London from abroad, and day after day the story of the poor Irishman who bus I>een left £-100,000 and is perturbed as to its disbursement is catching fresh victims.

The origin of the confidence-trick story is lost in antiquity but an American, a Canadian, and an Australian heard it for the first timo durlif.g the past >lB hours and paid the penalty. The details follow: Act I.—Scone 1.: Lord’s Cricket (•round—Mr Alister, an Australian farmer spoken to by l’atsy O’Brien. ‘•Cood hit, sir.” said IV, Uy, before telling the fortune story. Act I.—Scene II.: West Hampstead l’olice Station (later). —Farmer: And they didn’t return with my £Bt)b Act ll.—Scene 1.: Charing Cross Station.—Trickster: They can’t change a £SO note at the cloak-room for mv friend, and we want our luggage. Air Jl. Hadden, a Canadian: I can let you, lutve some money. (Hands over £35 roll of notes.) One Trickster: I’ll got change. Second Trickster: I'll get change.

Act. ll.—Scene II.: Ilow-street police station.— Canadian; 1 waited over an hour

Aet lll—Scene 1.: The Strand.— Mr St rood. American with camera, meets irishman v. ith ancient storv.

Act lll.—Scene II.: Bow-street Bo lice Station.—And ! handed nut £LV and my camera and they didn't

MAC NET THIEF. LONDON, June ‘2 ,

Visitors to the British Empire Fxhihilion at Wembley should look after their innhrellas and any objects of either steel or iron when they visit the Palace of Engineering. For there, its an exhibit of the Ceneral Electric Company, stands a giant magnet weighing nearly three tons which has been temporarily thieving several souvenirs from visitors. Yesterday a women carrying a handbag, apparently of silver, bad it drawn Irotn her grasp. As the magnet only attracts articles of iron and steel her discomfiture may be imagined. The magnet can lift up to ill tons of metal, and even if the metal is cased in wooden boxes of llin. thickness it can make the boxes jump from the ground a distance of from -lin. to (jin. A loose!v folded umbrella was the other day wrenched from tile bund of a visitor, and the umbrella was completely opened, and remained so pin-1 tied to the magnet.