Confidence Men Busy.

Grey River Argus, 5 November 1928, Page 5

Confidence Men Busy.

TWO VICTIMS. WELSH DOCTOR AND NEW ZEALANDER. LONDON. September 30. Tn the same issue, a London paper on September 19, gave publicPy to the stories of two people who had been victimised by clever confidence people. In thp first place Mr James Deason. a New Zealand farmer who is visiting England, complained to the London police that confidence tricksters had robbed him of £4500. -Mr Deason met three men at his hotel and became friendly with them. When i‘. was discovered that he was a New Zealand farmer, the men put forward a scheme for the. treatment of meat in New Zealand, and Air Deason it is understood, parted with his money for the purchase of plant and patent rights. IN WALES. Dr John Henry Morris-Jones, of Col wyn Bay, Denbighshire, has been robbed of £2500 by a confidence trickster. Dr Al orris-Jones is one of the bestknown medical practitioners in the district. Recently he was call< d upon by a man who said he wished the doctor Io visit lii< sick daughter. The confidence trickster, who had polished manners and a plausible tongue, was : laying a* a big hotel ami appeared to be a person of wealth and position. He made an alluring proposition to the doctor who handed over the money. The man has not since been seen. Several other complaints have been made in other parts of the country concerning the activities of the same trickster, who i( known to the police. TECHNIQUE OF THE TRADE.

Tiie Evening News comments: — The average man, well aware that by no effort could he. extract let alone housands of pounds, out of his fellowmen by any but the most rigorously honest methods, cannot bc. «?vc that these plunderings are sufficiently accounted for by the Barnumium dictum that there is- a sucker born every minute. Neither wcal’liy New Zealand farmers nor medical practitioners can be complete mugs. The truth is that confidence trickstering moves with the times. Its technique becomes more perfect. Its experts become still more adept. In lawn tennis or flying or chess an exhibition of the game in its most advanced form involves results that seem to us little short of miraculous. But the stroke production of a Cochet is not more astonishing, more smooth ami irresistible than the spoof-production of a high-grade confidence man. The way of a bird man in th? air. is no more marvellous than the way of a word man in the lounge of a high-class hotel.