BOGUS PEER

Hokitika Guardian, 27 April 1933, Page 8

BOGUS PEER

NO PLACE IN “BURKE’S”

BOWLED OUT IN SYDNEY.

SYDNEY, April 20.

A thrill went through the New South Wales Premier's .oflice in Sydney the other day when a. bank official entered, accompanied by a well dressed st'auger, '“horn lie introduced to a friend in the department as a member of the English peerage. The stranger with the “title” was conducted upstairs to the .head of the department, who received his with characteristic courtesy. The visitor was plausible and t"lk r ’- tive. A student of P. G. Wrdehousu would not have recognised him as a true-blue Earl or Viscount, but there was nothing wrong with his grammar and liis lack of the traditional aristocratic accent, that the stage and the talkies have made familiar to the humblest civil servant, ir>s e'-nlainco hv the fact that lie had lived in Australia, for years. .The man of “title” sa A he bed been .0.-’-nwroo+ farming in Oneop«land a mere IAPO acres—and had -p’st come into tl.ie title. In fact he had more chan e”o title. Boron So-and-so wos a second handle, and |m also claimed lo li», .1 re’ftive of Ihe Eoj-l of CassiPs. Wli<-.m nopred that, he was a doctor of m"«f" He had also, he said, taken a medical de"rce.

The head of the department,—a man of wide eyperietme— i s a student ef “Rn-’ a’o Peerage.” as well as of P. G Wndohnusp, and n R soon as fhu cpPei's had left he looked for the p -incinol title and found that it was nonexistent.

Tp Hie meantime, however, another official had telephoned to HM A Q V"str lia and asked that a pinnace ho sent to Fort Mnenuarie earlv in the aiteriiooii to take the supposed member of England’s aristocracy to look over the warship., In due course he went on hoard, accompanied by the l-uidladv >f the hotel where he was residing. Unfortunately for him. however, a eopv of the “Peerage” is kept at Garden Island, and the soi-d : sant Lord had n t been oil hoard more the” a few minute* when he was called aside bv the commander aiul accused of being an imposter. He tried to brazen it out, b”t 'vas glad to go ashore by the first available boat.

The man, apparently, is known in + ho Mountains, aid is said +'o ha-.-lunched recently with the Mayor n + T\atoomba.,He iiT’opmed the latter that he, too, hnd'been a Mayor—of a townshin in Victoria.

Needlm-s to say, the bank official who introduced the stranger -to the'.Pre’U;er’s' Department had been taWn- in. The police .mow, have -the matter in hand, hut as there is no such title as the one he . claimed, he cannot he aecused of, impersonating an existent peer. ~