"OLD, OLD STORY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 89, 12 October 1938, Page 11

"OLD, OLD STORY"

A DROPPED WALLET

AMERICAN TAKEN DOWN

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, September 12,

A 64-year-old commission agent, who played the time-honoured "dropped wallet" confidence trick upon a wealthy American rancher and relieved him of £100, was sentenced at West London today to six months' hard labour.

He was William Young, a native of Australia, of no fixed abode, who pleaded guilty to stealing £100 from John Viggo Hendricks, by means of a trick.

. Detective-Sergeant Massey explained that Young met the American rancher in Kensington Gardens and arranged to see him again on the following day. They met as arranged, and while walking together through the gardens saw a man drop a wallet, which Mr. Hendricks picked up and returned to him. This led to a conversation between the three men, and afterwards they visited a nearby restaurant, where the man with the wallet told a story of a fabulous sum of money, part of which he proposed to apply to charity. He asked the other two men to assist him in its distribution.

The question was then raised of good faith, and it was suggested that each of them should hand over to the man with the wallet £100, as a guarantee of honesty. After the money had been handed over the other two men left Hendricks on a pretext and were not seen again.

At the hearing the Magistrate asked what had become of the money. It had gone. "The old, old story," was the Magistrate^ comment.