RECKLESS CREDIT. Making Smooth the Way of the Transgressor.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 42, 20 April 1901, Page 8

RECKLESS CREDIT. Making Smooth the Way of the Transgressor.

THE Chief Justice has had occasion twice this week to remark upon the facile way in which shopkeepers allow themselves to be imposed upon. In one instance, a forged cheque was readily cashed for a man who had just been engaged on a drinking bout. The cheque itself was so smudged with ink, and bore such an unbusinesslike aspect, that, as His Honor said, it must have been written when the man was drunk, and under the circumstances he could not understand why anyone had seen fit to cash it. In the other instance, the learned judge was sitting in bankruptcy jurisdiction, and the circumstances placed before him caused him to observe how unfortunate it is that business people give credit so recklessly. • « • A still more recent case in Wellington sharpens the point of the learned judge's remark, and illustrates the ease with which the unprincipled impostor may make a " rise." It was that of a recent arrival, whose only capital was a £5 note, with which he opened a banking account. His stock-in-trade seems to have been a gold medallion, a plausible tongue, and a cool cheek. Although only, a seafaring man he started operations in a gilt-edged way. His first care seems to have been to equip himself with visiting cards, and so as to get these on credit he also ordered a stock of notepaper, which was to be specially printed with his family crest and motto. The order, of course, necessitated a search through "Burkes Peerage and Landed Gentry," and funnily enough the device attached to the name which he gave as, his happened to be, " Thou shaft Want' ere I want." The tradesman had good cause to remember it. • • • He next visited a jeweller, and ordered a, medallion to be made in facsimile of one, bearing his private monogram, which he carried about with him. Naturally, he was duly particular about the monogram. And, havijng broken the ice with the jeweller, he indulged in a few valuable purchases, and left his cheque in payment. E.e called in at a mercer's, and went in for a general outfit. Ribbons for his hats must be in his own particular colours and stamped in gold with his jnonogram, which, of course, led to the usual exhibition of the medallion. In fact, this medallion appears to have been the talisman which resolved all doubts and won the way to all hearts. •X * * He went to a tourist agency, arranged his route of travel, and gave a cheque for £40. But the jewellers received the greatest share of his attention, and the largest amount of his valueless paper. In all he is alleged to have passed worthless cheques to the tune of £250 or £260, and was within half-an-hour of getting safely away by steamer when he was run down. He began operations on the day before Good Friday, and he booked his passage for the day on which the banks re-opened. In that interval he prosecuted his business with much vigour, and spread his custom and paper over a great many establishments. He is said to have proposed to a young lady, and to have given her a couple of diamond rings (bought with his bogus cheques) and also a cheque for £50, likewise bogus. • • • On the day of his intended departure one of the cheques came back to a certain jeweller dishonored. The tradesman communicated with the police, but the man could not be found. A band of the victims started on the war path to pick up clues. At another jeweller's they got on his track. He had left just twenty min[Continued on Page 17. ]