CRIMINALS ON HOLIDAY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4595, 31 August 1923, Page 2

CRIMINALS ON HOLIDAY.

(By G. T, Crook.) It is partly because the leading lights of the criminal world ape-away holiday-making that there has been such a welcome crime “slump” .in Rondon. But there are still many left behind. As a rule jewel thieves combine business with pleasure. They tpui the south and east coasts, stay at large hotels and boardinghouses, and as nobody knows their fingerprint history they pass for very respectable members of society and commit robberies from bedrooms and lounges without arousing suspicion against themselves. Confidence tricksters, the aristocrats of crime, invariably .spend !t,heir summer holidays in Devonshire and Cornwall. I suppose it is because the west country reminds them of ’he other Riviera where the foundation of many of their most successful swindles has been laid. It is a curious fact that these confidence men do not mix business wi‘h pleasure. They stay at the quietest resorts, play golf during the day and a shilling a hundred auction bridge at night, and they would not look at a “mug” if you made them a present of one. I was lunching at a famous restaurant a day or two ago. At an adjoining table were two close friends of “Sludger Bill,” the prince of swindlers, who was sentenced at Paris recently to five years’ imprisonment.. They had a day or two before nested more than £ll,OOO from the foolish young son of a well-known man, and their talk was mainly on the question of whether they should go to the United States or Devonshire. They decided on Devonshire. I have no doubt that America meant work and Devonshire play. Well, they could afford to play,