LURE OF THE FLAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18787, 14 February 1923, Page 7

LURE OF THE FLAT

MATRIMONIAL SWINDLE. GERMAN GIRLS VICTIMISED. LONDON, January 28. During the last few weeks a number of girls quietly entered the Cafe Astoria, in Berlin, says the Daily Mail correspondent. Each sat for a long time at a small table, and then timidly asked the manager if ho knew Herr Mnier, of Ingolstadt. The question was asked so often that the manager, who did not know Herr Maier, thought that a practical joke was on foot. Finally, ho discovered that each inquirer for Maier was engaged to him. On this the help of the police was invited, and a procession of disconsolate maidens went to the police station and told each of them the same story. A beautifully dressed man. it seems, proposed to them, pressing his suit ‘‘with the declaration that he possessed ;i flat —one of the most difficult things to find in Berlin Each had been assured that she was exactly like the girl he had lost, and for whom ho had exquisitely furnished the flat. Each produced a photograph of the “latelamented ” that had been given her by Maier with the assurance that it was his most precious possession. Each confessed that, she hud given him her trinket and then waited vainly at the Astoria. Yesterday " Maier was surprised by the police while relating his sad story to another victim. He is a driver of a Munich brewer's dray.