ROBBED BY GIPSIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 January 1943, Page 4

ROBBED BY GIPSIES

VICTIMS’ FORTUNES TOLD. INCIDENTS IN AUSTRALIA. In spite of oft-repeated warnings from the police, and published records of the Courts, people are robbed from time to time in Australia by slickfingered, plausible and picturesque gipsy women who roam from city to city and town to town with their tribes in search of victims. ’’ Under the pretext of reading palms or telling fortunes, the gipsies steal money from their clients in a way that the 'police have not yet fathomed. There have been cases of large sums filched from under the eyes of the owners without detection. For every case brought under notice, police consider six are not reported, victims preferring to bear their losses rather than appear foolish in a public Court. Two recent cases were ventilated in a Sydney Police Court, but, as usual, the victims were unable to suggest the method of trickery. One of them, Richard Ernest Lyon, a chemist, volunteered an explanation that perhaps he had been mesmerised. Lyon said that on November 5, Mary Gordon, aged 24, went to his pharmacy with a baby. He gave her advice about the baby and in appreciation she insisted on telling him his fortune. She asked him for paper money and he took £l7 from the till and held it partly while she wished him luck and told his fortune. “Later I checked up on the cash register and found a shortage of £3,” said Lyon. . John Charles Barber, a motor driver, said that Sophy Sterio, aged 32, had persuaded him to let her tell his fortune. After she had gone, he found a £3 shortage in his cash. The women, each of whom had sev-| eral previous convictions, were fined £3 with 10s costs, and ordered to pay compensation.