The confidence-trick seems never to want victims. At Bow Street
on Tuesday, a man named "Irish Mike" was com- mitted to take his trial for stealing a watch and chain from Thomas Hill by means of that well-worn device. Hill, who is apparently an American engaged in seeing the sights of London, met Irish Mike in a street near the Tower, and asked him the way to St. Paul's. Mike offered to act as escort, and, as a preliminary, took his friend into a public-house. While there, a third person entered, who first declared he had been cheated by a cabman, then produced a pocket-book, which he alleged was full of money, and finally described how he had just come into a large fortune. Mike and Hill, joined by this fortunate stranger, then adjourned to Battersea for more drinks. They next returned to Waterloo Pier, and visited another public-house. Then the stranger asked Mike to trust him with his purse, which Mike did, allowing him and Mr. Hill to go out of the door with it. When they returned, the stranger gave the purse back, with a 25 note as a recog- nition of Mike's trustfulness. Hill was then asked to show his confidence in a similar way, and when pressed, did so with his watch and chain as well as his purse. Of course the stranger and Mike never returned, and it was only owing to a chance meeting at the Zoological Gardens between Mike and Hill that the latter was arrested. The trick is, we believe, played constantly in London and elsewhere, and is known and talked about in every tap-room and ale-house in the Kingdom, and yet is never exploded. That this should be so is due, we expect, to the inordinate love for posing as free, open-handed, trustful good-fellows which, in some form or other, is experienced by most human beings.
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