THE SEARCHLIGHT TURNED ON SHADY ALIENS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6120, 5 March 1898, Page 1

THE SEARCHLIGHT TURNED ON SHADY ALIENS.

(Caaaell's Saturday Journal.) On the left-hand side of a dark and odoriferous court not a hundred miles from a busy thoroughfare in the East End of London, stands, or totters, a certain dingy, crumbling, moist-looking house. Although I had never been inside (writes a representative) I had heard something of this place, and when additional information came to hand my curiosity was such that I determined to obtain some particulars regarding the life led by those residing within its portals. By great good luck I succeeded in tracing an individual who had spent some time in the house as a lodger. This man, on my promising not to reveal his identy, consented to relate some of his experiences of the goings-on in what in reality is a thieves hotel.. . "The hotel," my informant began, "is conducted entirely in the interests of foreign rogues, many of whom oome there direct from the Continent. Any foreigner can have a bed for ninepence a night, and if a lodger wants a few wrinkles, as to how to start SWINDLING OPERATIONS over here, he can get them for the asking. There were fifteen lodgers in the place when I was there, and every one of them was au impostor of some sort. The lodgers being all gaol-birds— or, at all events people who fled their country for their country's good, and because the police were after them — every stranger who goes into the place is greeted with this question : ' Why are you here ? ' ' A bit of bankruptcy in Germany,' I heard one man reply. 'And you — why are you here ? ' >' 'I am called Fritz,' answered the person addressed. 'Tomorrow, weil-r — ' and he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that any other alias would st/jtnd as sweet. 'My fault is the fault of my parents ; they gave me too great a knowledge of writing.' This was a delicate way of describing his misfortune, for the man was, and is, an expert forger." "Well, what sort of roguery do these scamps practise?" "Every kind of crime you can imagine. Many of them confine themselves exclusively to imposing npon recently arrived aliens, escorting them whenever opportunity arises to the hotel and fleecing them of all their belongings. I had many a talk with a man who swindles his own countrymen wholesale when they come here for the purpose of settling down. His method is to watch the railway stations and the foreign clubs and scrape up acquaintanceship wherever he can. Then when he lights upon anyone who wants to buy a business, he plays the role of agent and asks to be allowed to carry the business through. He assures his prey that he has special opportunities for acquiring businesses at- low prices, and iii many cases he induces the victim to part with a substantial slice of the money which he intended to lay out on the purchase. When a likely person has asked to see the owner of the premises he is desirous of buying, I have known this man to employ a fellow lodger to impersonate the landlord and get the purchase money that way. THESE RASCALS SURMOUNT aLIi OBSTACLES. I got to know most of my fellow-lodgers fairly intimately during my brief sojourn at this abode of bliss. I remember there were two beardless boys — I believe they are there, now — who used to spend half an hour every day in the common sitting - room, practising the gentle art of garrotting. Seeing them at their antics for the first time I inquired what they were doiug, and was told that they were making themselves familar with a ' special kind of knock.' This ' knock,' I gathered, was invented expressly for the delectation of old men and drunken men. The two youths were in the habit of sauntering forth every evening to put this 'knpek' into execution. Selecting their victim carefully, they give him the ' knock.' which usually renders him insensible, after which they rifle his pockets. One of the lads brought home twenty-five pounds one night." " Aren't they afraid of anyone informing the police?" "There is never any fear of that. No man dare split on another, for the excellent reason that they are all tarred with the same brush. " The hotel is a rare haven of refuge for the alien rascal, and I don't know what he would do if it closed its doors. Once on its threshold he may.,be sure of being ' put on his legs,' so to apeak. For example, if lie has reason to fear that the foreign police have been in communication with New Scotland Yard regarding him, he will be recommended to a house close by which is SET APART FOB MALEFACTORS who wish to 'hide themselves until the activity of the police in connection with their affairs has subsided. The charges for apartments there are rather high." " Now, tell me how foreign thieves get to know of the existence of this strange hotel." "Itis an extraordinary thing, but the public are absolutely ignorant of the fact that there are several individuals who are doing a fine trade as thieves' agents. These men keep the hotel full. Their headquarters— the business is best described, as a floating ageucy for wrongdoers — are situated in an important city on the Continent, and they have branches in most of the big towns. When a swindler is scampering away from the law he often fears to go to a foreign land on account of his ignorance of the language, so what he does is to call at one of the local branches. If he has any money he will be assisted out of the country with alacrity— in disguise if need be— and directed to another agent who will help him to keep out of the way of the police. If he has no money, but is known as an expert thief, he will still be helped ; some, indeed, are rigged put in new clothes. To trust a thief may seem a rather remarkable feat of confidence, but in reality the agency risks nothing, for the borrower is kept under observation byjrtne manager of tho branch to whom he is sent until he settles what he owes." W Strange and Co.'s good tailoring for fit style and value is unequalled. -