WOMEN HOAXED.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2784, 1 May 1911, Page 3

WOMEN HOAXED.

SERIES OF ALLEGED CLEVER

FRAUDS

The police have arrested a welldressed man, who is said to be wanted all over London for systematically robbing the wives ot tradesmen by representing that their husbands had met with accidents at market, and needed another suit of clothes.

He is named Frederick George Searle, aged 31, and when charged before the Westminster Magistrate, a detective said the prisoner had already been identified in no fewer than eleven cases. During the identification there was a " scene," the women who picked him out telling him very volubly their opinion of his conduct. One woman was told to go along the line of men and touch the one she alleged had robbed her. " Yes, I'll touch him," she said, and upon reaching the prisoner she gave him a vigorous slap on the face. Mrs Emily Nicholas, wife of a fishmonger, of Upper Marsh, Lambeth, told the Magistrate that prisoner a few mornings ago called at her shop and alarmed her by the statement that her husband while attending Billingsgate market had fallen into the Thames. Prisoner said her husband wanted fresh clothes, and upon witness giving him a suit and a macintosh, prisoner went off, stating that he would hurry to the hospital. Another prosecutrix from Lambeth said that prisoner called and told her that her husband had been knocked down unconscious in the market by a truck of fish, and that all his clothes were covered with blood. Having got clothes, including an overcoat, the prisoner went off saying that he would rush to the telephone and see it the man had recovered consciousness. Mrs Edith Brougliton, wife of a poulterer and fishmonger at Maida Vale, said that early on December 28th she was called downstairs by violent ringing and knocking. Prisoner was at the door, and said he had bad news—that her husband had fallen into the Thames from the slipway at Billingsgate. "It was an awful shock to me," continued the witness. She added that she entrusted prisoner with clothes worth

Mr William Thompson, fishmonger, of Milkvvood Road, Heine Hill, another man who had been represented as " living in blankets at the hospital," said he would like to have had prisoner

in his back yard for a few minutes, (Laughter).

Prisoner was remanded in custody,