TAKEN DOWN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16741, 23 December 1914, Page 4

TAKEN DOWN.

YOUNG MAN FROM POVERTY BAY. MAKES FRIENDS AND LOSES MONEY. [From Our Correspondent.] AUCKLAND, December 22. A confiding young man from the back of Gisborne had quite an experience in Auckland on Sunday. A man on the street accosted him and asked him the way to Albert Park, and when ho stated that ho was a stranger in.the town the other man said that ho. too, did not know much about the city, having just como up from Napier in charge of a stallion. He invited the Gisborne youth along to his hotel to have a drink and a chat, and when they reached the sitting-room the stranger introduced two friends. What happened afterwards was told yesterday to the police by the young man from Poverty Bay, in making a. complaint that he had been defrauded of £l7 10s. He said that when a drink was mentioned everyone wanted to pay, and his first “friend” suggested that they should decide by a game of cards. The cards were produced, and ho was initiated into a kind of draw game.that was new to him. He was told he had won the first draw, which he understood referred to payment for the drinks, but nothing in the way of money was handed to 'him. Other draws followed, in which he lost £2. £5 and other amounts pooled on the table, and eventually he was informed that he had lost £l7 10a to “ the tall gentleman,” who was not the man who had originally accosted him, He was somewhat bewildered by the way things seemed to be going, but he went for a walk with the three newfound friends, and eventually discovered that they had lost him. Yesterday afternoon Detective Hammond made the arrest of Frederick Carruthers (twenty-eight), James Davidson (twenty-eight) and Reginald Simpson (twenty-eight), on a charge of^ having conspired together to defraud the Gisborne young man. The accused had arrived hi Auckland on Saturday from Palmerston North. Each of them had on him cash amounting to a little^ over £ls. The men came before Mr F. Y . Fraser. S.M.. this morning, and were remanded till to-morrow, bail being fixed at ono surety of £IOO for each.