LOSS OF £50

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 436, 18 May 1937, Page 2

LOSS OF £50

REMARKABLE STORY Shock For Farmer Hamilton, May 17. A remarkable story of how a wellknown farmer lost £5O at th? Waikato Winner Show and how he very nearly lost another £5OO, became public in Hamilton on Saturday. At lunch fme on Friday a man walked into the Union Bank and presented a cheque for £5OO, drawn on a well-known client of the bank. As the amount.was large it was. queried, and the manager*, Mr. A. E. Sandford, interviewed the man, who claimed he was an employee of the bank’s client, who, he said. h. d bought a large amount of machinery and wanted the cheque cashgd. The cheque was in perfect order. Mr. Sandford was unwilling to offend a good customer, and suggested that the man should bring his employer to the bank. The man agreed to do this, Mr. Sandford retaining the cheque.

The man did not return. In the meantime Mr. Stanford discovered that a cheque for £5O. drawn on the same clien*. had been cashed at the- bank by the same man a short time previously. He immed’.ate'ly visited , the show and interviewed his client, who was amazed at the manner in which he had lost his money. It appears, that he was playing a game, and to show bis bona tides filled in a cheque for £5O. Lu ter he and the bystanders saw a man tear up what they thought was the cheque. A little later the farmer filled’in another cheque, tht s time for £5O0 fi and again he thought that he saw the" man tear up the cheque. It is clear now that similar pfr-ces Of paper, and not the actual cheques were torn. .up. The farmer was as onished to hear

that one cheque had been cashed and *hat an attempt had been made to cash the other. The polic-e have been active in attempting to trace the man, but so far without success. At the last summer show in the Waikato the police iisuued a warning to the public to beware of efforts to obtain easy moftey.