SHADES OF WALLINGFORD

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 57, 6 February 1925, Page 12

SHADES OF WALLINGFORD

HAW is 7id WHEN ARRESTED. POS:SD AS STATION MANAGER. SYDNEY, Jan. 23. Nothing more like the fictional J. Rufus ffallingford has evef been known in Syd ley than a young man who has just co ne into the hands of the detectives after two glorious weeks spent at the expense of unsuspecting shopkeepers and one of the largest city hotels. It was a letter purporting to be fion. the manager of a Goondiwinde station that presaged his arrival in the city. ]t was received by the manager of the <;ity hotel hi' question, and stated that ]V r would require a good suite o' rooms from January 13. According y they were apportioned, and sure enough a blithe young gentleman arrived and took them over.

One «'f his first acts was to get into touch with tho proprietor of a city garage, hiring a car for an indefinite period. In it lie had many pleasure jaunts ;o Bulli and other South Coast beauty spots, trips to the mountains, and he used the car for running round the citi while he was at the hotel. In all he " -an up a bill of £7O with the garage, but he always put off the question of settlement with the tale that he had £BOO in safe keeping in the hotel ssfe. In fact, so wall did he act, that ths proprietor of the garage hesitated t 3 press his claim for fear of losing a good customer. On the strength of his assertion that he was the manager of 1 he huge station property, many per'sons in the, hotel lent him sums of money, on which apparently he lived. With the same tale he imposed on a city ret til store to the _extent that they supplied him with a suit of clothes, and the besl silken underwear, worth in all more tf an £SO, on credit. They, of course, have not seen any money from him.

Durin ; his short career as the station manage; , he got into touch with a voung society woman in Sydney, conducted i whirlwind courting, and had arranged to marry her quietly on Thursda?. He gave her a ring and other d.amond jewellery, which was supplied to him, on credit again, by a jeweller in the city—who, too,, was not paid for his goods. The ring and other jeweller" were .returned to the jeweller to be in tialled, so that the latter loses little. , , But t le man's manner at tho hotel, and the fact that he made no move to return >tie .sums he had borrowed, roused ihe suspicions of someone, who got into touch with the police, two detectives being detailed to interview the '•station manager." Under their crossexamination, it is alleged he broke down, aid confessed that he was not the man tger of the station, though ho hud worked there, and a diary they found ia his room showed that he had been employed there in various capacities. Tb 3 bubble of his supposed wealth was burst when the detectives found only Is ' '2d in his possession, and he is supposed to have admitted that it was all ho p< ssessed outside of his debts at the hotel. The police also discovered that he had booked his ticket on tho Queenslaid mail train, for Thursday, and who her ho intended to marry and take his bride with him they have not been abb to ascertain. Since the arrest, the police tstato that they find warrants in existence from every State of the Commonwealth calling for the arrest of the "station manager."