Chinese Merchant Falls For Hoary Swindle Two foreign women, a gypsy and a taxi-dancer named Lola Petrova and Ludmila Himich respectively, were brought before the First Special District Court yesterday on suspicion that they might have been involved in a fraud case in which a Chinese merchant was recently in danger of losing $10,100. They were ordered to be detained for a week, during which the police will try to arrest a Russiar crook who played the part "lof magician boasting that he could double the amount of bank notes by a Sail duplicating process.
It was revealed in court that the Russian at large told the Chinese merchant, a Mr. C. W. Woo, that he could duplicate banknotes by dipping the paper money into a basin of chemicals. Believing that he possessed such an ability the merchant had a meeting with the Russian in -|a house off Bubbling Well Road where, in addition to the magician, the two accused women were alleged to be present. The merchant handed over a suitcase in which was $10,000. After stuffing the notes into white sheets of paper, the Russian put the bundle into a basin full of chemicals and then after a few minutes he took it out.
The magic was supposed to have been finished and he then handed over the bundle, supposed to contain the double amount of the original sum of money, to Woo who was asked to pay a certain percentage io the Russian. The Chinese merchant, however, never thought that the original bundle had been replaced by an identical one before the Russian crook went into action in the basin, When he opened the bundle and found only blank sheets the police were informed. The officers hurried to the scene in time to arrest the two women, The original bundle, which never went into the magic basin, was recovered but the Russian man had slipped away.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.