NO, THANK YOU!

Evening Star, Issue 21570, 16 November 1933, Page 10

NO, THANK YOU!

BANKRUPT'S HIDDEN FORTUNE LURE FOR THE UNWARY The celebrated Barnum once declared that a mug was born every minute. That is why charlatans prosper and dupes lament. For sheer hocus, without finesse, the Spanish “ bankx-upt ” scheme takes the prize. Not the most gullible would be entrapped by the appealing letter for assistance from the suffering prisoner, branded as impecunious yet possessing £75,000, which he is willing to share with any person securing his release. From Barcelona the tub is being tossed to the whales; but the whales are not likely to snap at tho bait. Recent mails to all parts of New Zealand have brought mimeographed letters of appeal, which, instead of finding their way to sympathetic hearts and impoverished purses, have found the waste-paper basket or the kitchen fire. The writer of the following letter is likely to spend his days in prison. If he is not there, he should be. This is a sample of his pitiful artifice : Dear Sir, —Being imprisoned here by bankruptcy, I beseech you to help me to obtain a sum of £75,000 I have in Australia, being necessax-y to come here, to x-aise the seizure of my luggage, paying to tho Register of the Court the expenses of my trial, and recover my' portmanteau containing a secret pocket where I have hidden two checks payable to bearer for that sum. As a reward, I will give up to you the third part: £25,000. I cannot receive your answer in the prison, but you can send a cablegram to a person of my confidence, who will deliver it to me, addressed as follows. Awaiting your answer to instruct you all my secret, now I sign only— S. First of all answer by cable, not by letter. A. Badia, Lista Correos 226, Sta Colorna Fames (Spain). Other letters of a similar type, holding out promises of fortunes in Swiss and other currency, are also being despatched from Barcelona. It seems to be an old Spanish custom nowl