“GET-RICH-QUICK”

Taranaki Daily News, 12 October 1922, Page 7

“GET-RICH-QUICK”

CHRISTCHURCH MAN DEFRAUDED.

Probably “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” anti “Brewster’s Millions,” were the staple items in the supply of reading matter that 19 years old John Henry Irvine kept under his pillow (states the Christchurch Sun). At any rate, when he appeared in the Magistrate’s Court on Saturday morning, resplendent in a shot silk tie, juid socks of the loudest tint of blatant purple, he admitted having concocted a get-rich-quick scheme that would have been a money-maker had it lasted. Luckily for the public, Detective-Ser-geant T. Gibson got on to the tracks of the young confidence man who pleaded guilty to having obtained the sum of £2O from William Magnus Cederman by means of fraud. The story told by Sergeant Gibson was that the youth—who did not live with his mother and step-father at Opawa —had inserted in a Christchurch newspaper this advertisement: — Man wanted, with £lOO to invest. Will receive permanent position and good salary. The advertisement worked well. Many applications were received from return■ed soldiers, it being thought that over 70 men applied for the “permanent position with good salary.” To Cederman, Irvine became chatty, and regaled the client with a story that he had purchased the Silvertown Rubber Co.’s business in Christchurch. Cederman had then paid over the £2O. “In just over a week,” said Sergeant Gibson, “the boy has raised over £lOO, of which we can trace only £lB 14s. which he says belongs to Cederman. The boy is a bit flash.”

Mr. H. Y. Widdowson, S.M., remanded Irvine for a week, for sentence, pending a report by the probation officer.