FRAUDULENT SUBSCRIPTION LISTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 145, 19 June 1906, Page 2

FRAUDULENT SUBSCRIPTION LISTS.

Charitably disposed people have recently been asked for assistance by a weakly-looking man named James Burton Burko, bearing a subscription list and an appeal, apparently signed by the Rev. W. E. Gillam, vicar of St. Matthew's. The same man has asked other charitable peoplo for donations on the strength, of a recommendation from Mr Lindsay Cooke, a well-known hotelkeeper, that Burke was a deserving subject. The police having ascertained that the appeals were forgeries, Burke, who was found to have an alias Boyle, and to be a convicted forger, instead of a "deserving subject," was arrested. He faced Mr W. 6. Riddell, S.M., in the Police Court to-day, pleading guilty to "two Charges 'that he was a rogue and a vagabond in that he obtained a 5/ subscription from Charles Kalman by a false pretence, and a similar amount from Edwin Williams. Chief Detective Marsack detailed tho facts, and handed in a document showing that Burke was sentenced at Auckland in 1002 lo two years' imprisonment for, forgery, and a repetition or that offence m 1904 resulted in bis committal for 2i years. Burke objected to being catled "a rogue and a vagabond," but he admitted be received the "subscriptions upon bogus lists, and was sent to prison for six months on each charge.