AFTER 30 YEARS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8491, 18 January 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

AFTER 30 YEARS.

Some of our readers jnay remember thaton more than one occasion we have issued warnings against the firm of Dorey Lester and Co., which was in the habit of circulating broadcast in tho colonies catalogues and advertisements offering watches' and jewellery / at what appeared to be marvellously cheap prices. Some confiding New Zoalanders, who either omitted to note these warnings, or, wilfully ignored them, sent their money to the firm, and—the rest was silence. Their Post Office orderswere duly cashed, but ,no watches or jewellery ever came to hand, and toall their remonstrances and expostulations Dorey Lester and Co. remained as unresponsive as • if the firm had suddenly vanished from the earth. That it was still in existence, -however, was shown by the fact that the post continued to bring shoals of their seductive circulars, still offering their incomparable bargains. It is with great satisfaction that we now learn thafr Mir Dorey Lester, who seems to haw©' comprised the entire firm in hie own person, has at length made hik- appearance in the flesh, and has been sent by the Recorder of London' to penal servitude for three years-.. It was shown that. he had been- carrying on his "business" for thirty years, and that for twenty-seven years the police had been receiving complaints about him. His audacity verged on the sublime, because it appears that while he ! neglected to send out the watches for which he received money from the public, he frequently succeeded in extracting from the public not o*dy money, but watches as well. The manner in which he achieved _ this remarkable feat "was by advertising himself as open to repair watches, as well as to sell them, in both cases, of course, it being an indispensable condition that the money was to be paid in advance. When he received watches for repair he stuck to them, and if they were sufficiently valuable, he pawned them for what he could get. No fewer than 233 tickets for watches were found in his possession when he was arrested, with numerous letters of complaint from the indignant owrters. That he escaped with impunity so long is due to the fact, first, that he confined his operations largely to an oversea trade; and, secondly, to general reluctance of people who have been victimised to come forward to confess the fact in public, to say nothing of "throwing good money after bad." Mr Labouchere, who naa done so much to expose swindles of this kind, suggests that the powers of the Public Prosecutor should be enlarged. With that we cordially agree, but we hope also that in turn the public, on whom such swindlers prey, will learn a little more sense. Unfortunately, there are at present shoals of people credulous, enough to fancy that there are benevolent tradesmen who thrive by selling goods for much less than they cost to produce; and that there are other benevolent people who possess an infallible plan of making money either on the turf or the Stock Exchange, but who prefer to impart the secret to complete strangers—for a consideration—instead of using it themselves,, and so becoming "rich beyond the dreams of avarice." So long as there is such a plentiful crop of fools in existence, we fear that rogues like Mr Dorey Lester will thrive.—-Press.