FALSE PRETENCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19695, 23 January 1926, Page 11

FALSE PRETENCES

THREE BROTHERS CONVICTED. A HUGE SWINDLE. (Pies* Association —By Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, January 21. Three brothers—Alexis, Walter, and Henry Mandeville—were each sentenced to six years’ penal servitude on fiftyone charges of conspiracy to obtain larva sums of money by false pretences. They pleaded guilty to twelve charges. The prosecution said that the brothers, through newspapers and circulars and the newspaper Financial News, which Almas edited, and in connection with which he formed a company, induced the public to buy stocks and shares. The company in 1919, showed a loss of £50,000, never theless it declared a dividend of 50 pet cent, from money paid by subsequent subscribers. During the years 1918 to 1921 the Mandevillcs received from the public £511,800, of .'which £31.20 n was paid to tho Mail Company and the oalance misappropriated to their own use.. All the brothers maintained expensive (establishments. It was also recalled that tho Mandevilles’ bucket shops failed in 1909 with liabilities totalling £424,000 and assets amounting to £6O. It was impossible to say the extent to which the public was defrauded in the present case, but £300,000 would be a modest estimate.— Sydney Sun Gable. ‘Tucket shop” is an American slang term for stockbroking businesses which are not associated with the regular Stock Exchanges. The operations amount simply to betting between tho shop and its customers on the movement of prices. These are not purchased; the customer having nominated his stock or commodity, pays a sum as ‘‘margin” to cover his possible losses, and he loses or receives payment as the price of the stock changes. The term “bucket shop” is said to be due to an incidental aspect of the business in Chicago, where the local Board of Trade forbade dealing in “options ’ on small parcels of grain. To overcome this difficulty an “open board of trade” was established below ■ the rooms of the Board of Trade, and here the small gamblers conducted their operations. There was a lift between the two floors, and when the official exchange found business slack the lift twas sent down to the “open” ex-, change to bring np a “bucketlnil” of clients.