A MASTER SWINDLER

Grey River Argus, 28 August 1907, Page 4

A MASTER SWINDLER

DOREY LESTER AND CO.

I . The firm of Corey Lester and Co. was in the habit of circulating broadcast in the colonies catalogues and advertisements offering watches and jewellery at what appeared ito.'be marvellously cheap prices. .Some confiding New Zealanders sent their money to the firm, and— the. rest was silence Their Post -Office orders were duly cashed, but no Swatches or jewellery ever came to hand^ and . to all their remonstrances and expostulations. Dorey Lester and Co. remained as unresponsive a s if the firm had suddenly vanished from the .eiarth. That, it was still in existence, however, was •shown Iby the fact that the post continued to bring shoals of their seductive circulars, still offering their inccaniparable bargains. .Mr Dorey Lester, who seems *j hav c comprised the entire .firm in his own person, has at length made his appearance an the ! flesh, sand has been sent by ithe Re- j corder of London to penal . servitude ' for. three years. It . was shown . that he. had ibeen\carfying on his- "business", for thirty years, and that for twenty-seven year s the police had been receiving complaints about, him! Hisaudacity verged On the sublime, because it appears thhi while : h c neglected to send out the Avatches for which he received money from the public' he frequently succeeded in extracting from th c public not only money, .bul watches, as we11... Th c manner in which the achieved his remarkable^f eat ' was by advertising-Wmself as open to repair watches, as well as to' sell them; in both' cfetses, of course, it being an indispensible condition that the money, was -to be paid in advance. When he received watches for repair h e stuck to them, and if they were sufficiently valuable he pawned therh for what he could get. 'No fewer than 233 tickets for watches were found in his possession when he was arrested, with; •numerous letters of complaint from ;. ; the indignant owners. That he escaped with impunity so long is d-ue to the fact, first, that he confined his operations largely to an oversea trade ; and, secondly, 'to general reluctance of people who have, been victimised to come, forward "to confess the fact in public, to say nothing of "throwing good irioney after bad."