PARSONS’ DETECTIVE

Evening Star, Issue 19615, 22 July 1927, Page 11

PARSONS’ DETECTIVE

PREPARING BLACK LIST A black list of professional beggars, who prey systematically upon the charity of clergymen, is being compiled by the Rev. T. P. Stevens, vicar of St. Matthew’s, Now Kent road, London, who has taken on the role of the parsons’ detective. _ “My black list contains some of the country’s cleverest liars,” said Mr Stevens to a representative of the ‘ Sunday News.’ “ Defrauding the London clergy is a regular industry, in which information about tho circumstances and peculiarities of every clergyman is pooled. “It is not only the old-fashioned vicar who turns out to ho the ‘soft mark’; nearly all the business-like, up-to-date clergymen of tho younger generation have confessed to being taken m by these people. “ The oldest and most common story which is used to wheedle money out of trustful clergymen’s pockets is that told by tho man of seafaring appearance who says ho lias a job in a ship at Southampton and lacks money for the fare. “ I remember hearing that story when I was a child thirty years ago, and it is still used with eminent success. “ Another ingenious deception which was successful only recently on a wellknown London vocar was worked by a man with a dog who met him in tire street, and wanted to give the dog to him. “The vicar declined, saying that he had one dog already, but a few days afterwards the same man called at his house and said; ‘ 1 am now down and out. I must find someone who will look after this dog. If you will not tako it will you find someone who will.’ “The vicar then sent off two long telegrams to people he knew in the country, and a reply came from one of tho two, saying they were willing to take the dog. The man was thereupon sent oft with sufficient money to pay his return fare, and that, of course, was the last that was hoard of him. “There is also tho interesting case of the man who weeps. He comes with a story that his little girl, or his wife, has just died, and. crying in the most realistic manner, he asks for money to pay tho undertaker. This man has, to my knowledge, defrauded over _ twenty clergymen, mainly because ho is such a brilliant actor.

“ The most amusing case of fraud I have met is that of an Irishman calling himself Michael O’Sullivan, who posed ns a Protestant forced to leave Ireland because of his religion. His brogue would have won anyone’s heart. “ Ho first appeared when ho asked my parish clerk to find three god-parents for his newly-born child. They must he good Christians, he stipulated. The clerk made some inquiries, and eventually found three people willing to act. “The day of the baptismal ceremony arrived, and tho three god-parents, the clerk, and I stood ready at the font, looking rather foolish when wo realised that Michael O’Sullivan was not there, and neither was his child. “ I’hen it turned out that the clerk had lent ‘ Pat ’ quite a. tidy sum of money, and all was explained. A few days afterwards, when T spoke of this occurrence to the local Roman Catholic priest, he said: ‘Good gracious, he nlayed the same trick on us, telling us lie I>d to leave Ulster because of his adherence to the Catholic faith.’ “When for 10s T can take a child at Brighton for a fortnight T think it is nothing short of criminal that money should he given every day to swindlers of this sort.”