“Mallard and Co.” and “George Shaw,” 10 Dawes Street, S.W.—Names used by a swindler whose only known address is a small shop where letters are taken in for him.
Edgar and Co., 24 Trevor Square, Knightsbridge.—Sharps whose impudent method of “doing” a customer out of a considerable sum of money I exposed last October.
Harry Williams, Piccadilly Circus Mansions, 67a Shaftesbury Avenue, W.—Upon being asked to pay an account a week after the settling day, Williams refused to pay at all, on the ground that an application for the money was an “impertinence.”
Alec A. Harris and Co., Agra, Gresham Road, Staines.—This is seemingly an alias chosen to induce incautious backers to believe that they are dealing with Alex. Harris, a well-known and highly-respected bookmaker. Needless to say, Mr. Alex. Harris is not in any way connected with this shady starting-price office at Staines.
C. B. Rae, 12 Duke Street, S.W.—Before he blossomed forth as a touting bookmaker this individual, whose real name is Sydney Reed, practised as a solicitor and was implicated in a cruel fraud.
Robert Adamson, Disraeli Gardens, Putney.—A harpy who tries to bribe club servants into furnishing him with the names of likely gulls.
J. Gordon Youngly, Bedford Hotel Chambers, Covent Garden.—States in his circulars that “your name as a sportsman” has been given to him by “Mr. T. Forrester, 21 London Street, E.C.” This is an accommodation address, and “Mr. T. Forrester” is apparently J. Gordon Youngly under another name.
C. Bennett, King William Street, E.C.—Professes to have Army officers and City merchants for his clients, but specially circularises “the coachman” at country houses.
With an infantile ingenuousness which is little short of downright idiocy, people are found ready not only to credit the existence of infallible systems of betting, but to hand over their cash without the least security to any stranger undertaking to “invest” it in the working of such a system. Most of the gentry whose prospectuses promise fabulous profits upon “investments” of this kind are much too astute to attempt to work any system of betting. They simply put the money in their pockets, and in due course inform the investor that owing to an unexampled run of bad luck the system has failed:—