DRUGGED AND ROBBED.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12535, 24 June 1901, Page 3

DRUGGED AND ROBBED.

(Pearson’s Weekly.). There is no class of thieves in London which has of late years been so successful in its hauls, or which has baffled the police more than that which comprises professional dxuggera. These men are always persons of immaculate exterior, and most plausible, nay, even fascinating, address, and their haunts are all the fashionable places of resort of the West End where moneyed strangers from other lands or from the country congregate. But their favourite haunts are quiet and fashionable saloon bars, where they make a great show in the way of expenditure. The drugger sees a sunburnt gentleman, perhaps enjoying himself unwisely and spending money freely, and he contrives, generally with a confederate, to pick up an acquaintance with the stranger and to make himself vastly agreeable. The two or three adjourn to some place of amusement, and some hours afterwards a gentleman, the victim, is driven by a cabman to- a police station—and sometimes to a hospital afterwards—insensible, and minus money, watch and jewellery. The cabman has picked up two “gentlemen" originally, but one of them has called on the way on some excuse, and has not returned. Were it not for these frequent incidents at police stations, the police would never hear of one-twentieth of the cases of drugging, for the victim is GENERALLY A MAN . of some means and position, who had rather suffar loss than be dragged into a prosecution. 'Again, he not infrequently sets down his own insensibility, when tbe drugger who has had him in hand has been accomplished at his evil work, not to drugs, but to some vile drink that he may have got at some place on his round. There are other means which jnay not be told"as a matter of policy, but it is no secret that most of the members of the drugging gangs use chloral. It will be well, within the memory of most people how, a very few years ago, a Manchester gentleman of some importance was found dead in a cab as the result of meeting an affable stranger, who administered chloral to him. In this case, the drugger was a bungler. To show how little that description can apply to the London specimens of the same kind, it may 'be stated, as an absolute fact, that ouiy recently a celebrated musichall performer, who knows London life as few men do and who is an abstemious man, was so completely • the victim of druggers that they ' robbed him of every article of value he possessed and left him insensible in his own brougham. One cl the druggers had previously, in affected admiration of the performer’s talent®, given him a beautiful and valuable diamond ring, which, of course, went with the rest

At a great and most fashionable place of amusement in the West End, the waiters not long since found, at the end of the performance, a gentleman in evening dress who was alon® and insensible.' Bottles and glasses were greatly in evidence, and il was afterwards found that the gentleman had been heavilsr and SERIOUSLY DRUGGED, and robbed of property to the value of over £7OO. The waiters remembered two men of most fashionable exterior who had been with him, bnt who seemed to have slipped away. Although from this tim. tbe waiters' kept their eyes open, the almost incredible fact remains that twice subsequently was this same scene repeated at the same place, the latest victim, an American gentleman, losing over £IOOO. In two of the cases the management' had the glasses strictly examined and the presN ence of chloral was detected. Almost the same thing occurred twice at a well-known billiard room' in the West End. On the second occasion the marker seems to have been in the way of the thieves,., and they drugged him also. But, after the actual robbery had taken place, he recovered sufficiently to send a message down a small lift used for -the purpose of bringing up refreshments, and the two thieves were caught. But the victim would not prosecute, once he got his own back, but he gave the marker a £lO note. In this case one of the druggers was a man of undoubted birth, who is a well-known turf blackleg. - But these miscreants sometimes . meet their match. Not long ago, two of them picked, up a Yorkshire gentleman, who was attending the London wool sales. He nad a very large sum of money upon him, and as he had met the two men at bis own hotel, and as they spent money very freely and seemed most gentlemanly men, he never suspected them for one moment. He was enjoying himself to the full at ‘a bar in the heart of fashionable London,

when the barmaid contrived to whisper to him that one of the men had put something into his, the Yoxkshireman’s, glass. She further managed to tell the gentleman what she thought the men were. One of the fellows, suspecting something, slipped off, but the intended victim thrashed! th» other man within an ace of his life, the drugger actually being driven off to the hospitalStaying at' on® of the great hotel* near Trafalgar Square was a doctor, a man of mean* and of foreign extraction, from South Africa. He was _ enjoying himself very freely in the great city, and one evening picked up two most friendly and apparently rich, strangers, i He foregathered with them eagerly, though he did not tell them what his profession was. One of the waiters made a quiet statement to him as to his companions, and it may be said at once that the doctor did not fully believe this statement.

But he thought, though he was getting rather muddled at the time, that he might as well keep his eyes open. Further, h* retired to his own room at the hotel for a moment, and put into, his waistcoat pocket certain drugs on hi® own account. Then he and his two companions adjourned further West. At one place th# doctor detected instantly that dhloral had been put into his glass, and he quietly retorted by so hocussing the two thieve® that one of them nearly died, whilst the genuine and natural teeth of the other, a particularly fine set, completely came out. The doctor made no secret of what he had done to the police, and even invited prosecution. . It is a pleasure to add that HE REMEMBERED THE WAITER. The following case occurred in August last, and it has had its counterpart no fewer than four times, as reported to the police during the last twelve months. How many times besides, one may conjecture. Not far from Southampton Bow a gentleman of undoubted position was walking in a quiet square when ha observed a welldressed lady reel and almost fall. She clutched the railings, and, seemed about to faint. - He rushed to her at once. She feebly thanked him, and, indicating * prosperous-looking dwelling a few step* away, told him lie lived there. He supported her to the door, out ol which at the same moment there issued an elderly lady of aristocratic appearance and manners. The latter implored the gentleman to further assist the younger lady, her daughter, to the handsome sit-ting-room, which he did. Profuse thanks from both followed, for the younger lady seemed to revive marvellously. The gentleman was very much pressed to take a glass of wine, which he at last did very reluctantly. An hour afterwards he woke up, with an awful headache, to find himself sitting in the same room alone, and despoiled of every valuable he had possessed. The landlady of the house, » person of undeniable reputation) explained that the ladies had only taken her rooms that same morning, and had gone out about half-an-hour be-, fore to “fetch their luggage,” The gentleman was robbed to the, extent of more than £IOO, and the thieves were never traced.