A CLEVER SWINDLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8314, 18 December 1906, Page 3

A CLEVER SWINDLE.

' The "amazing captain" story from 'Germany reminds a correspondent •of the -'Daily Telegraph" ofa clever crime in London, which also depended on the awe inspired by a uniform. A silversmith in the City was visited one day by a clergyman 1 who tasked to look at some silver teapots, coffeepots, and urns. He made his selection, and, .'explaining that he was dhoosiiig a testimonial, handed over in payment a £IOO note. Just then another clergyman camein whowas a friend of the first, and by a strange coincidence, had also come to choose a testimonial. 'Che second parcel was being tied up, when a. policeman entered the shop and arrested the two clergymen •saying they were expert thieves. Pushing the pair, with their testimonials, into a waiting fourwheeler, the policeman asked the 'bewildered jeweller to go with him •and assist the course of justice. The jeweller awoke some hours afterwards, with a splitting headache in a deserted four-wheeler cab, that had been dragged without its horse, into a lonely corner near the docks. His watch and purse, two parcels of silver, and the £IOO note had gone, with the clergymen and the policeman, whtf turned out to be as fraudulent as the audacious "officer" ■at Koepenick.