BANKER SWINDLED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 14 September 1907, Page 3

BANKER SWINDLED.

Mr Dan Davis, a wealthy banker and oil speculator, giving evidence at Pitisburg Police Court, confessed, says the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, tha; he had been swindled out of £15,000 at faro in New York by an ingenious confidence game. 'I admit," he said, "that I am one of the biggest asses alive," and people who read the evidence to-day will not dissent from that judgment. Mr Davis was so eager for the game that, after having lost £IO,OOO at two sittings, he chartered a special train to go to bis home in Marietta and get £SOOO more to recoup his losses and win the fortune promised him. W. J. Adams and Frank B. Ranger, of Pittsburg, were arraigned on a charge of conspiracy to defraud brought by Mr Davis. Frank Thompson, of New York, was also accused by Mr Davis. In telling his tale of woe Mr Davis related how Ranger approached him with a story about a friend named Thompson, employed as a faro bank dealer in a gambling bouse run by a rich and powerful syndicate of gamblers. Mr Davis showed interest, and Ranger, with many cautions of absolute secrecy, unfolded an easy scheme for quick wealth. Mr Davis was to get £20,000 in one coup. Ranger told how his friend Thompson, smarting under unfair treatment at the hands of the faro syndicate, wanted to get even. '•Thompson," said Ranger, "is the syndicate's right hand man, and in full charge of the biggest faro bank game in New York. He can't afford to win their money himself, but he can make anybody sitting on the other side of the table win any amount while he is dealing, and it would be better to have a stranger make the winning. To make the play high enough to justify winning £20,000, it would be necessary to have at least £SOOO. There was i* chance to lose." To cut a long story short, Mr Davis undertook to get the money, and Adams escorted him to the fora house. I He lost his first £SOOO, then another £SOOO, as the dealer Ranger explained, "a wrong pack of cards was accidentally dealt out." Then Mr Davis chartered a special train to Marietta and got £SOOO more, which went the same way as the first. One of the confederates afterwards confessed thnt it was a pnt-up job to swindle Mr Davis, whom he deserilied as "the biggest mug America has ever known."