The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-01-22
A PARADISE FOR GRAFTERS
ADVENTURES FLEECE PEOPLE
ALONG CHINA COAST.
Slick Men and Women Find Easy
Marks, Especially in High Social
Circles. Some Instances.

Circles. Some Instances.
The China coast from Singapore
to Vladivostock is the pasture ground
of men and women adventures who
live by their wits and the lack of
them in others. All this comes about
because the colonies of Europeans
scattered from the straits UP along
the coast to the frozen circle are al
ways gullible, owing to their insular-
ity. Provincial from long living
away from the whirl of things in
Europe and America, the people who
constitute the little foreign colonies
in the various ports of China, Japan
and the Straits Settlements fall easy
prey to the suave tongue and the
polished manners of the wayfarer
who plumbers.
After one colony is fleeced the dis
eliminating rogue moves on to an
other, leaving broad track of bitter
memories behind There is the in
stance of the polished gentleman who
dropped into Yokohama a few years
ago with a batch of letters of intro
duction from hypothetical persons in
India.
This Capt. Blank was SO dashing
fellow that the English set in Yo-
kohama took him up with gusto. He
lived at the best hotel, ordered ex-
EhinnCQ
tailor, and was dined on the Bluff
with all the comical eclat that is
of the English colony colonial.
Then Capt. Blank consented to
take the leading part in some private
theatricals. He wooed the daughter
of a bank manager at rehearsals,
borrowed 5000 yen and diamond
ring from the girls father, and on
the eve of the performance eloped
with the daughter, the diamond ring
and the money. He cast the girl of
at Hong Kong and travelled light into
the unknown waters beyond
/ Hardly had Yokohama society re-
covered from the shock of this expe-
rience when Nine. Nemo-the name
will fit as well as any other-dropped
into town. 1t was during the Russo
Japanese war.
Nine. Memo said she was accredit-
ed as a correspondent of the London
Mail to write some of the real in
side history of the war She bore a
letter, subsequently found 10 be
forged, to a well-known writer on
things japanese, and soon blossomed
out in the social world. Suddenly
she left town after she had borrowed
money right and left and had worked
blackmail game on an Englishman-
| A Dane in a red dinner coat was
the wonder of Shanghai a few years
ago. Because he dropped into the
dining room on the evening of his
arrival garbed in scarlet all the men
/ who made the Astor House their
| club and the center of their existence
| Jumped to the conclusion that the
Danish gentleman, whose name APP
peared on the register with a title
prefixed, must be a person of circum-
stance.
Red dinner coats were Immediately
ordered from the Chinese taiioTs OF
Shanghai and overtures were made
for the Danish gentleman's acquaint-
ance. He held aloof for just the
psychological period, tantiIizing the
men and fascinating the women.
Then he allowed two of the wealth
lest men in the foreign colony of
Shanghai to become his intimates.
sold them several thousand taels'
worth of stock in tin mine in the
Malay states and moved on. There
were no more red dinner coats in
the Astor dining room after that.
And for some months Danes were as
scarce as the tin in the Malay mines.