WOMAN’S CONFIDENCE TRICK

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 140, 28 May 1928, Page 7

WOMAN’S CONFIDENCE TRICK

UNEMPLOYED HOODWINKED. STRANGE STORV FROM NELSON. (Per Press Association.) Nelson, May 26. Details of a confidence trick, by which a number of unemployed were induced to part with their last few pounds in the hope of finding work at a 2000-acre farm in the Nelson district, have been revealed. They said that some three months ago an advertisement calling for a business agent was put in the Wellington newspapers The successful applicant set about engaging the 150 men which hi s employer, a woman, said she required. There were many applications in answer to the newspaper advertisement, but when it wa.s found that money was required most of those who applied were forced’to drop out.

The employer said she wanted men to develop a 2000-acre mining and timber growing inoperty at Rappahannock, in the Nelson district. She said that there was plenty of gold awaiting to be mined, in addition to timber for firewood and posts. She also wished to construct roads to and through the property. The tale was very plausibly told, and some of the applicants-who had a few pound s to spare eagerly accepted the easy conditions offered. The woman asked for £.? for each applicant’s fare to the farm, plus £3 for a fortnight’s food until the works became established Some paid the full amount, but others who had less were allowed to proceed to Nelson on the payment ot £3 only. Eventually a party of 10 hopeful workers, including a married couple engaged as cooks, left Wellington with instructions to proceed to a certain hotel for breakfast if they were not met on the wharf by a motorlorry. The lorry was not there to meet the boat when it arrived in Nelson, and the party proceeded to the hotel, where, to their temporary dismay, the proprietor informed them that he had received no word of their coining. However he accepted their story and gave them a meal. Later he received a reassuring telegram froni Wellington, on the strength of which board was given. The unfortunate ten were thus left stranded in Nelson. Some eventually went to a relief camn at Kawatin and others tried to find work about the city. Two of the victims both single men, walked in from Kawatirj and made application to the Charitable Aid if? h ß, 'e their fares paid back to Wellington. The woman concerned is described as “somewhat eccentric,’’