TRUSTED JAP IS A CRAFTY THIEF

Dr. W.A. Shannon, of this city, is convinced that the lines written by Bret Harte anent the craftiness of the Chinese apply as fully to those other sons of the Orient, the Japanese. Incidentally the dawn of this belief is accompanied by the realization that this same craftiness bids far to cost him $552 in real money and that F. Nakaita, a former house servant, is an unlawful beneficiary to this amount.

Dr. Shannon's story as told to Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Vandeveer this morning, is to the effect that for a considerable length of time up to a year ago, Nakaita was considered a valuable adjunct of his household. Than him, none was more satisfactory as a table servant. He was ever ready to anticipate the slightest wish of master or mistress and when about a year ago he decided to go to California there was mourning in the Shannon household.

There is mourning there today and Nakaita is the cause, but it is not because of his good qualities.

Yesterday Dr. Shannon was confronted with a check bearing his own signature and showing that it had been accepted at its face value, $552, by the City and County Bank of San Francisco. There was no doubt as to the genuineness of the signature, but the doctor was nonplussed at the presence of the paper, for he had never known of its existence until that moment.

The explanation of the seeming mystery which was arrived at by the doctor after considerable cogitation, is that the Japanese before leaving stole a blank signed check, one of a number of which the doctor had given Mrs. Shannon, and that after this lapse of months he had filled it out and cashed it at San Francisco.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Vandeveer will take steps to recover the money, if it is possible, it being understood that Nakaita has a bank account in California. Nakaita is believed to be in Oroville, Cal., and the officers of that town have been wired to place him under arrest.