AN OLD TRICK

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 96, 20 October 1931, Page 7

AN OLD TRICK

CHICAGO VICTIM

(From "The, Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 4th September. Another story of confidence tricksters appeared in the "Daily Mail" yesterday. This time it is not a New Zgalandcr who has lost his money, but an alleged New Zealander who stole itMr. Charles Schonne, a Chicago architect, was the victim of the old, old trick, He was in the National Portrait Gallery, when, he said, "a young man, about 27 years old, got into conversation with me and told me he was a New Zealandor. Ho gave the name of Wilson, and we went around, together. The next day we were on' our way to an omnibus station in Victoria when a man stumbled into Wilson. He was an Irishman, about 65 years old. "We had a drink together, and then tho Irishman told us a, story about having inherited a fortune and wanting two other men to help him to distribute it. I feel sure he had somo strango influence over me, for my own personality seemed to leave me, and I believed everything he said, and did everything ho instructed. "The Irishman said that before he could mako us partners in his scheme he must have evidence of our faith in him. Wilson immediately produced about £500 and gave it to him. I said I had £.400, but only in letters of credit. Thereupon Wilson said ho would come to tho bank and help me change it into notes. I put the notes in my wallet, and when wo returned I handed the wallot over, and tho two others walked out. . . . That's all." Mr. Schonne, who said he "felt sure lie was hypnotised," declared that while lie was at Scotland Yard, reporting his loss, the tricksters sent to his hotel his travel tickets and other papers that were in the stolon wallet.