A 'FIZZGIG.'

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3521, 20 October 1882, Page 4

A 'FIZZGIG.'

Startling revelations affecting the Victorian police continue to be made before the Royal Commission now engaged in taking evidence. According to the Southland News correspondent the latest development is more extraordinary than any yet made. Some time since a young bootmaker named Patrick Boardman was seized upon by the police and had up under the Vagrancy Act. The police siisuected Boardman had been concerned in the robbery of £42 from an hotel in Hotham, but as thpy could not sheet that charge home they took the other method. They acted on the principle of the old gentleman who, having found out that he had thrashed his son for a fault he had not committed, said : ' Well, if he didn't steal apples this time he did on another occasion, so he deserved the whipping all the same.' It was in vain Boardman pleaded that he followed the occupation of a bootmaker, and had an account at the London Chartered Bank. The Bench sided with the detectives, and sentenced him to gaol. Boardman retaliated by giving evidence before the Police Commission, which, if true, is very shocking. Boardman swears that the detectives have pursued him relentlessly since he refused to become what is tailed a ' fizzgig ' for them. A ' fizzgig 'is a criminal who is employed by the detectives to ' put up' cases of burglary, notifying the detectives so that they can come in at the right time and effect a ' clever capture.' Boardman states that he was had by one of these ' fizzgigs,' who put up the robbery of a bank at Hotbam, and then slipped out while the rest were trying to open the shutters and brought down the detectives. His statement was borne out by a constable, who stated the detectives had engaged a room in an hotel overlooking the bank the night before the robbery. The matter looks very grave. Of course the police endeavor to make out that Boardman is a bad character, and that his evidence is worth nothing. The public are astounded and disgusted at the revelations.