TRICK THAT FAILED

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 53, 6 March 1929, Page 5

TRICK THAT FAILED

A DOCTOR'S £20,000

Sentence of twenty-three weeks in tho second division was passed at the Maryborough Street Police Court on Albert Jackson, 38, described as a tourist, of Langhamv Hotel, W., who was charged on a warrant with being concerned with Clark and Grant in unlawfully conspiring to :obtain £20,000 from Dr. Arthur Eobert Graham, a surgeon practising in Sydney, with intent to defraud. . .:'■-. :; .■■■■..-•

The casofor the.prosecution, as stated by Mr. B. Knight, was that while.Dr. Graham was in Paris Jackson got into acquaintance with him. A wallet was picked up in a street containing a 50----dollar bill and a newspaper cutting, which purported to show . that a man named Clark was a "wizard operator" on the New, York Stock Exchange. In the reception lounge,'of- the hotel named in the wallet they found T. C. Clark, who offered them the 50-dollar bill as a reward.' Clark later stated that he was over here for a New. York firm of brokers, whose aim was to break down bucket-shop operations. ,

Clark described the methods, and added that he had made £35,000 profit that day. He suggested that they should go, in for £20,000 each. Later Dr. Graham produced a cheque for £20,000, which Grant, who was supposed to be an official at a bank, said was no good. Prosecutor then got the amount in notes, but refused to put it in a: sateliel which the others said contained their money, but which, no doubt, was waste paper. They'then made excuses and left, and the'prosecutor communicated with the police. In prisoner's possession, when arrested by Detective-Sergeant C. Mann, was a letter in a kind of code, addressed to a-person in Paris, which read: "About my egg; well, it is really a hard-luck story; but wo should; have had it. He brought along a .twenty.' thpu,' but we never got it, so that's all. I am with another, sale."

Mr. Knight, on the question whether the case could be dealt with by that Court, stated that Dr. Graham wanted to return to Australia as soon as.'..pos-. sible. . As tho money was not actually taken, the prosecution were prepared to reduce tho charge to one of attempting to obtain the money by false pretences. ; Mr. Mead concurred,! and accused pleaded guilty to that charge.

. Pasgeis-by in the aristocratic St. Germains quarter-of: Paris; at first thought that a cinema film wus being taken when they saw a man jump from a fourth-floor window, bounce from the canvas hood of a passing motor-car], anl land safely on his feet in- the street. In reality the man, tired of life, had thought to kill himself, but the car was passing beneath his window when hd jumped. He told the. police that he fully realised what a narrow escape he had had.