LURED TO A PICNIC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 176, 28 July 1932, Page 8

LURED TO A PICNIC

TRICK ON THE POLICE STORY OF A COCKFIGHT HOT CHASE AFTER DECOYS. Three mysterious-looking meu, carrying small sacks, slipped out of the back door of a house in a small industrial town in Yorkshire, recently, and stepped into a waiting motor-car, which set off at top speed across’the moors. Within a minute police cars darted away in hot pursuit. The long chase did not end until the Lancashire border was reached. There the three men of mystery got out of their car and produced from tho sacks —sandwiches! They ato them with relish in front of the disappointed police. At that moment, miles away, one of the most important cock fighting mains for many months was being held without police intrusion. It had been organised from tho very town whose police sleuths had been decoyed away to a picnic party by the “sandwich men.”

The main had been arranged by leading exponents of cock fighting in the north, and some of the most doughty birds had been matched. A site was selected on tho bleak moors nearly on the Lancashire border, and, although only a few of the people who were present knew the exact time and place, the secret leaked out. The knowledge that the police were on the look-out came to the organisers’ ears less than two hours before the arranged time. It was too late to cancel the event, but not too late to alter the details. Telephone calls were put through and visits were made to certain places. The result was that, at the time originally fixed for the start of the expedition, three men. got into a motor-car as described by a Daily Express correspondent. Plain-clothes policeman had been watching the house all day, and, as tho motor-car left —with, as it was thought, game-birds in tho sacks — some officers went in police cars in pursuit, while others flashed a warning to other parts of the country along the route the men with tho sacks wore expected to take. Every one interested in the cock fighting, apart from the three decoys, had meanwhile gone to an isolated spot arranged at the last minute. Nearly 50 men saw matches for wagers varying from £5 to £lOO. Hundreds of pounds changed hands during the afternoon, and three valuable cocks fought until they died. There was not even a hint of police interference.