THOUGHT HIM EASY MUTTON

NZ Truth, Issue 1181, 19 July 1928, Page 5

THOUGHT HIM EASY MUTTON

Farmer Higgins Was Such A Dear Old Gentleman

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Cambridge Representative.)

John Higgins is a dear old gentleman of short stature, with features barely ' discernible through a bush of hair. He lives at Leamington on the opposite side of the Wai\alo river from Cambridge, where he has farmed for many years. -

SOME two miles distant resides a farmer named Nichols, who had m his employ for a couple of years, until recently, Alfred Mitch and his ■wife. The husband was receiving £2 a week and the wife/£l, while Mitch is .paying £4 a month to the State for maintaining his children m an institution. The couple 'became friendly with old John and were frequent visitors to his home. Usually,, on a Sunday afternoon — or whenever they had a few . Hours : to spare— they would wander up the road to see the' old man, to quaff a cup of tea with him and eat. some of his home-made scones. Old John, as aforesaid, is a dear old gentleman. The Mitchs', doubtless, mistook his excessive geniality

for softness.- ; . He is so easy going, m fact, that they thought he would fail to notice several missing

'cheque forms. They actually tbelieved — even if he heard that the forms had been signed m his name and cashed on his account that he would be so sweet and nice about it as completely to forgive his two friends. , At least five such cheque forms were stolen from John's house during the course of one of the visits which the Mitchs paid the old man. ' ' A bright reward, indeed, for his hospitality; a touching display of gratitude. A few days after • the forms were purloined, the Mitchs drove into Cambridge—for despite their apparent poverty, they sported a Ford. Mitch filled m one of the cheques at the post office for £5 and walked over to the Farmers' Auctioning Company where he cashed it. ' The signature on the cheque he forged m the name of John Higgins. Mrs. Mitch owed the Farmers' •Auctioning Company an account for £5 and the husband adopted a novel , means pf paying it.

Sported A Ford

He cashed the cheque at the office and then handed the money to his wife to pay the firm back its own cash m settlement of the bill. The fraud having forked sue- . cessfully and with such apparent ease, the Mitchs then drove; over to Hamilton, where they adopted a somewhat similar course. With v a bundle of cheque-forms at his disposal and dear old John as a benevolent — though -unsuspecting — backer, it was a simple matter to- fill m an amount and hand It over the counter m .payment for goods. This Mitch did at four different establishments, his purchases 'being mostly, of clothing for himself and his wife. \ It is said that even after these frauds had been perpetrated, the

Mitchs continued to visit old John, eating at his table while wearing, some of the clothing they had fraudulently ob-

, tamed m his name. Crime,, of course, will out, and the fraud was eventually detected, as it was bound to be before very long-. Old John had no recollection of having issued five cheques, four for £ 5 each and one for £7, within a few days of each other. "When he was asked if the signature to the bearer was his, he denied it. The forgeries were traced to Mitch, who, on being questioned, admitted that he had filled m the cheques and had cashed them at different trading houses m Hamilton and Cambridge. He declared, however, that he did mot steal : the • cheque-forms, but that he and his wife had found them m Higgins' cart-shed. When charged at Hamilton last week with the offence, Mitch pleaded guilty and was committed , for sentence. His only excuse was that he had been pressed for money at the time and gave way to temptation.