WILD GOOSE CHASE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 28 May 1928, Page 8

WILD GOOSE CHASE

. #. UNEMPLOYED TRICKED A WOMAN'S SCHEME

(By Telegraph.—Press Association) NELSON, 26th May. Details of a "confidence trick," by which a number of unemployed were induced to part with their last .few pounds in the hope of finding work at a 2000-acre farm in tho Nelson district, have been revealed to a "Mail" representative. Tho victims state that some three months ago an advertisement calling for a business agent was put in the Wellington newspapers. The successful applicant set about engaging the 150 men whom his employer (a woman) said she required. There were many applications in answer to the newspaper advertisement, but when it was found that money was required most of those who applied were forced to drop out. The woman- said that she wanted the men to develop a 2000-acre mining and timber-growing property at Rappahannock, in the Nelson district. She said that there was plenty of gold waiting to bo mined in addition to timbercutting for firewood and posts. She also wished to construct roads to and through the property. The story was plausibly told, and some of the applicants who had a few pounds tr spare eagerly accepted the easy conditions offered. The woman asked | for £3 from each of the applicants'for fare to the farm, plus £3 for. a fortnight's food until the works became established. Some paid the full amount, but others who had less were allowed to proceed to Nelson on the payment of £3 only. Eventually a party of ter hopeful workers, including a married couple engaged qs cooks, left Wellington with instructions to proceed to a ,certain hotel in Nelson for breakfast if they were not met on the wharf by a motor-lorry. The lorry was not there, and the party proceeded to the hotel, where, to their temporary dismay, the proprietor informed them that he had received no word of their coming. However, he accepted their story and gave them a meal. Later, he received a reassuring telegram from Wellington, on the strength of which board was given. The unfortunate ten were thus left stranded at Nelson. Some eventually went to the relief camp at Kawatiri and others tried to find work about the city. Two of the victims, both single men, walked in from Kawatiri on Wednesday, and on Thursday applied to the Charitable Aid Board to have their fares paid back to Wellington. The woman concerned is described as "somewhat eccentric."