A Forged Letter to Secure Donations for a Spurious Charity The necessity for exercising the greatest caution when an appeal for charity is made by out-ai-work Russian refugees was amply demonstrated at the Mixed Court on Saturday, when Mr. C. E. Whitaniore (British Assessor), who was sitting with Magistrate Loh, found it necessary to speak very severely regarding a case of fraud, B. E, Shirgen was charged with attempting to pass a forged cheque, and, together with P. F. Novgine and N. N. Migoff, with obtaining money by means of a forged letter. Shirgen and Migoff pleaded guilty, but Novgine denied any connexion with the fraud. The matter of the forged cheque*had been brought up previous.
The case, as presented by Detective Inspector Ross and Detective Sergeant Hendry, and admitted by Shirgen, was that the latter composed a letter stating that the Community Kitchen (which has done such good work in feeding destitute Russians) was about to be closed and the bearers of the letter were authorized to collect funds to carry on the work. The subscription list below was headed by a false entry for the amount of $50 and when the prisoners took the list round, calling at a large number of shops and other business places, they secured several donations of $10 and $5, sharing the proceeds amongst themselves. The letter was written in a very appealing strain, including the phrase:—"God said, 'Do unto others as you would be done by.'
Novgine admitted that he knew of the existence of the letter and said that he accompanied Shirgen when the latter was collecting subscriptions, but he did not give Shirgen any help and he did not receive any of the money.
Shirgen, however, who all through the proceedings was laughing, said Novgine received some of the money. For himself, Shirgen said that for six months he had been walking round Shanghai looking for any sort of work, but he could not get anything to do. Eventually his condition was such tha, the only alternative to committing suicide was to commit some clime in order to get money. During the civil war in Russia he was driven to cocaine and he had been under the influence of the drug ever since.
The Assessor—The Court necessarily appreciate the very difficult position in which all the Russian refugees find themselves, but the three men now charged have committed a particularly mean crime. Two have admitted it and the Court do not, believe the other man's explanation. The forging of a letter: making an
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