"CON" MEN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 113, 5 January 1932, Page 2

"CON" MEN

CLEVER AUSTRALIAN S WHO FLEECE WEALTHY STRANGERS For having stolen £10,000 from Lewis * Leslie Punnett by a triek, Norman Hill, 35, a Victorian, was gaoled for four years, says a London cable. Scotland Yard has long been troubled by a small coterie. of Australian confidence tricksters, who, posing as wealthy Australians, have fleeced credulous Englishmen of thousands. They are regarded by the English police as the cleverest confidence men in the world, and the career of one of them makes interesting rea'ding. Hill, whose real name is Russell, is familiarly known to his intimates as "Tiger." A few years ago, during one of his lean periods, hp was standing beside the sundial in the Exhibition Gardens, Melbourne, soliloquising that, for once, his lucky star, had failed to shine. But he, came upon an elderly gentleman whose clothing exhuded the scent of the gumleaf. It took but a few moments for Hill to convince his victim that this ingenious timepiece was just the thing for the great outback, and a sum of money duly changed hands. Imagine the amazement of the curator when he espied a party of workmen attempting to re-move the famous sundial on behalf of the ancient purchaser! On another occasion, in winter, after the South Australian police had ordered him to leave Adelaide for Adelaide's good, Hill found a credulous farmer in the Melbourne express to whom he sold a footwarmer belonging to the railways. It was not until a startled porter at Spencpr Street Station relieved him of it that the countryman realised he belonged to the "one-a-min-ute" fraternity.