A QUEER HOAX

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 103, 24 January 1918, Page 6

A QUEER HOAX

GIRL'S FOOLISH ACT. A sensational kidnapping hoax was perpetrated last week, says the Hobart correspondent of the Sydney "Sun," when MY. C. E. Chesterman, a well known timber merchant, on returning to h ; s home at Bayswater, Sandy Bay, witn Irs wife and family, found'in the garden a well-dressed girl about thirteen years of age gagged and bound. Ho touk her to the nearest police station, where, after a short rest, slio told the police that while walking along Brisbane Street, Hobart, the previous afternoon a man drove up in a motor-oar, accosted her, and put a handkerchief smelling strongly of drug ovji- her mouth. She remembered no more till she woke up gagged and boun3 in Mr. Chesterman's garden, and found two gold bracelets and a pearl necklace missing. The police then took the girl to Dr. Ireland, who failed to find any marks of violence or the effects of drugs. After further close questioning by Doteetive-Sergeant Summers, the girl confessed that the whole story was n fabrication, and gave as a reason for the hoax that her mother had scolded her tint morning. , She adrka that she had buried the jewaliwy iu Mr. Chesterton's garden, where tl'.e police subsequently found it.