FRAUDS ON WIDOWS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 361, 21 February 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

FRAUDS ON WIDOWS.

SOME REMARKABLE SWINDLES

The confiding widow seems to be the favourite victim of the unscrupulous swindler.

Beware of the man who poses as a lonely bachelor, a man in r ‘comfortable circumstances.” who seeks a life partner —one with money preferred—who will help to develop certain business schemes. The phrase, “A widow with experience,” usually appears in his advertisement, and the "general result is that when he has got what money he can out of the lady who is unfortunate enough to be attracted by the advertisement, he promptly vanishes to play the game elsewhere.

AN ELDERLY DON JUAN. Quite recently an elderly Don Juan, described as a “pest to society,” was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude for frauds on. widows by representing himself as a viscount with an income of £2,000 a year.. 'ln one case he engaged a widow as w nurse, end*on the promise of marriage got her to lend him a. considerable sum of money, in addition to which he lived at her expense for some time.

A favourite game of his was to ingratiate himself with widows who let out apartments. He would engage rooms, and passing as a man of wealth and influence borrow money—in one case he induced a woman to hand over the whole of her life’s savings—and fleece them ia every possible way. In the end he would decamp without paying his bill for food and lodging. Of course, if is a somewhat old dodge, but a police inspector informed the writer when ehatting about the case that it gets more common every day.

DANGER OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS. “You see,” said the inspector, “it is a great temptation to a lonely widow, when one of these men who live by their wits takes rooms with her. to fall in with his wishes and desires. The scoundrel as a rule makes himself so agreeable that she feels that she cannot do otherwise, and it is only when he is suddenly missing that the victim realizes that she has been duped.” This type of scoundrel invariably keeps an eye on the matrimonial columns of the newspapers, and there have been frequent cases in which they have become acquainted through, the medium, of an agency with rich widows, married them, and robbed them of all their money.. There was a case a short time ago in which a man became acquainted with a widow with nearly £2.000 a year. She was induced to marry him, and he further persuaded her to .make over her propertv to him. Had it not been for the fact that the police got on his track and discovered that he had already married fwo women previously, that widow would probably have been reduced to penury. In another case an unscrupulous old seoulnrel. who was four times a bisramist. and who passed under eleven different aristocratic names, swindled and robbed no fewer than three widows. In each ease he offered to settle £5OO a year on the woman he deceived. He was ultimately run to earth and sentenced to three years’penal servitude.