IMPOSSIBLE INTEREST.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 88, 2 June 1911, Page 6

IMPOSSIBLE INTEREST.

ONE PER CENT. A DAY PROMISED. Paris has just shown Hint human nature is the same the to as it is in London, when largo returns are promised by gentlemen who pose as bankers." The fall of Carpenter's Charing Cross ■‘Bank” has been followed by the collapse of an institution in Paris, whose promises were very much more lavisn than those by which Carpenter induced poor people to part with their savings. A certain M. Jacques Riviere, some months ago, opened luxurious premises in a good business quarter of Paris, and flooded Paris with the following circular:— “Fortnightly interest. Wo guarantee you 1 per cent, a day. Wo are. the only house guaranteeing a fortnightly interest of Jo per cent, paid regularly. No stock exchange knowledge necessary. We do everything for you. Minimum deposit, .Cl maximum, £4000.” It is amazing that anvone .with a brain bettor than porridge should imagine that any reputable establishment could guarantee interest at the. rate of ,165 per cent, per annum, but as is always the case where the swindler is daring and plausible enough, there were many victims. People of small means, such as concierges, postmen, cabmen, and farm labourers crowded to the “hank” to entrust M. Rivicrs with their small savings, and confidence was redoubled when the promised interest was paid punctually—out of capital, of course. An inventor, wishing to test M. Kiviers’s honesty, offered him a sum in excess of the stated maximum, £4OOO, but no refused it. This was bruited abroad and redounded to the credit of the astute “hanker,” so that people who had doubted him now took him their money to invest. At its zenith the “hank” was taking in £IOOO a day. But after a while the police grew suspicions and made enquiries. The “hanker” declined to face the music, and when the police called ho had flown. In a safe was £4OO, against which the -establishment owed the dc-

positors about £120,000. Of course, it is tragic-to the \ ictims to he deprived of tho savings of years in this way, hipfc it is not easy for an outsider to work up much sympathy for people who are so hopelessly credulous.