BOTANY BAY IN 1825. (From an Aquatint by L. Lycett.)BOTANY BAY IN 1825.(From an Aquatint by L. Lycett.)
Coster’s frauds became known to Alderman Sir Peter Laurie, who set himself to unmask and convict him. It might have been more difficult had not the villain added forgery to his lesser swindles. He began to circulate bogus banknotes, and in February, 1833, sent to Honiton an order for lace, enclosing three ten-pound notes in payment, all of which were forged. Clark, the lacemaker, discovered the fraud, and forwarded the notes to the solicitors of the Bank of England. A plan was laid for the transmission of fictitious parcels to the address given by Coster, “W. Jackson,at the Four Swans, Bishopsgate Street,” and when Smith, the assistant, applied for them he was arrested. Coster’s complicity was next ascertained, and he was secured. The letter ordering the lace proved to be in his handwriting, but the strongest evidence against the prisoner was that of two of his former instruments, who gladly turned upon him. Coster was transported for life, Smith for a shorter term.
One of the most successful of modern criminal adventurers was the American, Walter Sheridan, who was said to be the originator of the great Bank of England forgeries for which the Bidwells were afterwards punished. Some say that he was the moving spirit in the whole business, but whether he did more than plan the affair may be doubted, and his name was never mixed up with it. An eminent police officer of New York, Mr. George W. Walling, states in his Reminiscences that Sheridan became disgusted with the way in which the job was worked, and declined to be further associated with such unsatisfactory partners. It is possible that, had he been allowed to carry out “the job” in his own way, it might have been accomplished without detection, to the more serious discomfiture of the Bank.
WALTER SHERIDAN.WALTER SHERIDAN.
Sheridan is a typical modern criminal, having great natural gifts, unerring instinct in divining profitable operations, uncommon quickness and astuteness in planning details and executing them. No one has better utilised to his own advantage the numberless chances offered by the intricate machinery of modern trade and finance. He began in the lower lines of fraud. Full of an adventurous spirit, he ran away from his home, a small farm in Ohio, when only a boy, resolved to seek fortune by any means in the busy centres of life. St. Louis was his first point: here he at once fell into bad company, and became associated with desperadoes, especially those engaged in the confidence trick. In 1858,when just twenty, he was caught and tried for horse-stealing, but just before sentence escaped to Chicago, where he became the pupil of a certain Joe Moran, a noted hotel thief, with whom he worked the hotels around very profitably for two or three years. At last, however, he was arrested and “did time.”
On his release, Moran being dead, Sheridan took up a higher line of business and became a “bank sneak,” the clever thief who robs banks by bounce or stratagem. In this business he was greatly aided by a fine presence and an insinuating address. He was the life and soul of the gang he joined, the brains and leader of his associates, and his successes in this direction were many. With two confederates he robbed the First National Bank of Springfield, Illinois, obtaining some 35,000 dollars from the vaults. Next he secured 50,000 dollars from a fire insurance company; again, 37,000 dollars from the Mechanics’ Bank of Scranton. A very few years of this made him a rich man, and by 1867 he was supposed to be worth some £15,000 or £20,000. He had gone latterly into partnership with the notorious George Williams, commonly called “English George,” a well-known depredator and bank thief. About this time he participated in the plunder of the Maryland Fire Insurance Company of Baltimore, and fingered a large part of the 75,000 dollars taken, in money and negotiable bonds, not one cent of which was ever recovered. One of his neatest thefts was relieving Judge Blatchford, of New York, of a wallet containing 75,000 dollars’ worth of bonds.
Misfortune overtook him at last, and he failed in his attempt to rob the First National Bank of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1870. One of his confederates had laid hands on 32,000 dollars, but was caught in the act of carrying off the packages of notes, and Sheridan was arrested as an accomplice. He was very virtuously indignant at this shameful imputation, and his bail was accordingly accepted for 7,000 dollars, which he at once sacrificed and fled. But now the famous Pinkerton detectives were put upon his track. Allan Pinkerton, who was assisted by his son William, soon ascertained that Sheridan owned a prosperous hotel at Hudson, Michigan, in which State he also possessed much landed property. The Pinkertons took up their quarters at this hotel, which was under the management of Sheridan’s brother-in-law. Chiefly anxious, while cautiously prosecuting inquiries, to secure a photograph ofthe man so much wanted—for nothing of the kind was as yet in the hands of the police authorities—young Pinkerton stuck at nothing to obtain this valuable clue, and having ascertained where the family rooms were located in the hotel, he broke in and captured an excellent likeness of Sheridan, which was speedily copied and distributed among the various Pinkerton agencies in the United States and beyond the Atlantic.
Sheridan about this time came in person to his hotel to visit his relatives. The Pinkertons did not lay hands on him here among his friends, but they shadowed him closely when he moved on, and by-and-by captured him at Sandusky, Ohio. He was taken to Chicago, but made a desperate attempt to escape, which was foiled, and he was eventually put upon his trial. He retained the very best legal advice, paid large sums—no less than £4,000—in fees, and was eventually acquitted through the clever use of legal technicalities.
Sheridan, after this narrow escape from well-merited retribution, “went East,” and organised fresh depredations in new localities. They were often on the most gigantic scale, thanks to his wonderful genius for evil. The robbery of the Falls City Tobacco Bank realised plunder to the value of £60,000 to his gang, and Sheridan, now at the very pinnacle of his criminal career, must have himself been worth quite £50,000. In these days he made a great external show of respectability, and cultivated good business and social relations. This aided him in the still larger schemes of forgery on which he now entered, the largest ever known in the United States, which comprised the most gigantic creation of false securities and bonds. It was an extraordinary undertaking, slowly and elaborately prepared. Taking the name of Ralston, he passed himself off as a rich Californian. He began to speculate largely in grain, becoming a member of the Produce Exchange, and obtaining large advances on cargoes of grain. At the same time he kept a desk in a broker’s office in Broadway as a basis of operations. His next move was to gain the confidence of the President of the New York Indemnity Company, to whom he represented that his mother held a great number of railway bonds, on which he sought a large loan to cover the purchase of real estate. Sheridan offered £25,000 worth of these securities, and readily obtained an advance to a third oftheir value. These bonds were all forgeries, but so faultless in execution that they deceived the keenest eyes. It was not the only fraud of the kind, although details of the rest are wanting. But it is generally believed that the total losses incurred by the companies and institutions on whom Sheridan forged amounted to nearly a million of money. Many Wall Street brokers and a number of private investors were utterly ruined by these wholesale frauds.
THE ARREST OF SHERIDAN.THE ARREST OF SHERIDAN.
A little before the exposure Sheridan quietly gathered all his assets together, divided the spoil, and crossed to Europe, carrying with him £40,000 worth of the forged bonds, some of which he put upon the European markets. Others of them were stolenfrom him in Switzerland by a girl who said she had burned them, believing the police were about to search the house for them. She had, however, given them secretly to her father, who also realised on them. Sheridan at last took up his residence in Brussels, where he lived like a prince, having forsworn his own country, to which he never meant to return.
But he could not keep away from America, and he presently went back to his fate, which was the entire loss of his ill-gotten gains. Under the name of Walter A. Stewart, he turned up at Denver as a florist and market gardener doing a large business. He presently established a bank of his own and was caught by the speculative mania; he took to the wildest gambling in mining stock, and by degrees lost every penny he possessed. After this it was believed that he intended to organise a fresh series of forgeries and he was closely watched by the Pinkertons. They arrested him as he landed from the Pennsylvania ferry-boat, and, brought to trial on no less than eighty-two indictments, including the New York forgeries, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Sing Sing. After his release he was arrested for stealing a box of diamonds, and yet again, as John Holcom, for being in possession of counterfeit United States bills. He received two fresh sentences, to follow one on the other, and as his health was already failing when he was last apprehended, it is probable that he did not long survive. Now, at any rate, the curtain has fallen upon him and his extraordinary career.
Another born American, who, between 1870 and 1880, achieved much evil fame and high fortune, varied by long periods of eclipse, was Canter, a criminal who, like Sheridan, possessed many natural gifts. Although at forty-five he had spent more than half his life in gaol, he was still, when at large, a man of distinguished appearance, with good looks and pleasant manners, an accomplished linguist and expert penman. More, he held a diploma as a physician, and had taken high honours in the medical schools, while he sometimes contributed articles to the press written with judgment and vigour. While in Sing Sing he was treated more like an honoured guest than a felon “doing time,” and had the pick of the many snug billets provided in that easy-going prison for its most favouredinmates. At one time he kept the gaol records, and thus had access to the particulars of all other inmates, their antecedents, crimes, sentences, and so forth. He turned this knowledge to good account, and invented a system of tampering with the discharge book so as to reduce the term of imprisonment of anyone for a stipulated sum. By the agency of certain chemicals he erased entries and substituted others, all in favour of the prisoner. He was not subjected to any prison rule save detention for the allotted term, and this detention must have oppressed him little, for he went in and out through the prison gates much as he liked, drove a smart team of horses, and paid frequent visits to New York to see his friends. It was greatly suspected that some of the prison officials who winked at his escapades were also implicated in his frauds.
SING SING PRISON.SING SING PRISON.
After one of his releases from Sing Sing, in the beginning of 1873, he created a Central Fire Insurance Company in Philadelphia, with a capital of £40,000. The stock was long in good repute, and was held by many respectable business men. Suspicion was, however, aroused, and the Pinkertons being called in to investigate,they soon ascertained that the assets of the company consisted of forged railway securities. The fraud had been cunningly devised. A small quantity of genuine stock had been purchased, and the figures had been altered to others much larger. A ten-dollar share was converted into one for three or five hundred dollars, and the whole assets of the company were practically nil.
SNAP-SHOT OF SING SING PRISONERS GOING TO WORK.SNAP-SHOT OF SING SING PRISONERS GOING TO WORK.
Among swindlers of the ’eighties the Frenchman Allmayer takes a prominent place, and may be regarded as a type of the nineteenth century criminal; one who, although fairly well born, undeniably well educated, and happy at home, where he was a favourite child, fell into evil courses early in his teens. He had been placed on a stool in his father’s offices, and one day came across the cheque-book, which he forthwith appropriated. There was a hue and cry for it, and it was soon recovered. But one cheque was missing, which in due course was presented at the bank with the forged signature of Allmayer’s father, and duly paid. By-and-by the fraud was discovered, and the author of it exposed andsharply reprimanded, but that was all. Soon afterwards he again swindled his father. He stole a registered letter containing notes, and laid the blame on a perfect stranger. Now M. Allmayerpèreordered his incorrigible son to enlist, and the young man joined a regiment of dragoons, where he soon made many friends by squandering money belonging to other people. To pay his debts he robbed his captain. Although he managed to defer his trial by a clever escape from the military cells, he was eventually sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Cherche Midi Military Prison of Paris, and passed thence to a discipline battalion in Algeria.
On the expiration of his term he returned to Paris, and gained his father’s forgiveness. Taken into the bosom of the family, for some time he lived a steady, respectable life, and might have done well, for he had undoubted talents, and his friends were on the point of securing him a good situation. The Allmayers lived at Chatou, and going up and down the line to and from St. Lazare, he renewed his acquaintance with an old school-friend, Edmond K., who gave him the run of his offices in Paris. Monsieur K. about this time missed several letters, which always disappeared from his table after Allmayer’s visits. But he had no solid reason to suspect his young friend, till one day something serious occurred. Another Parisian banker, C., was asked through the telephone by Monsieur K. at what price he would discount a bill for £1,600, drawn on a London house and endorsed by K. The banker C. thought he recognised K.’s voice; at any rate, he was pleased to do the business, for he had often asked K. to open relations with him. C. accordingly quoted his price, and was told by K. that the bill should be sent by a messenger, to whom he could pay over its value in cash. Twenty minutes later the bill was brought, and the money handed over. Next day, however, C.’s London correspondent, to whom the bill had been transmitted for collection, returned it so that some small irregularity in the endorsement might be corrected. It was passed on to K., who declared at once that he knew nothing of the endorsement, but that the bill itself was one he had lost two months before. As for the cash paid by C., it had not come into K.’s hands. Clearly there had been a crime, but who were the guilty parties? Two clerks in K.’s office were suspected, and as these young gentlemen had been imprudent enough occasionally to imitate their employer’s signature, merelyas a matter of amusement, they were arrested, and the case looked black against them. Allmayer, however, obtained their release in the following manner.
From the first discovery of the fraud, Allmayer had taken a great interest in the affair. Being K.’s intimate friend, he accompanied him to the prefecture of police, and was called as a witness by thejuge d’instruction. Taking the judge aside, he privately told him a story with that air of perfect frankness and plausibility which he found so useful in his later career. He would confide to the judge the exact truth, he said. The fact was that Monsieur K., being in pressing need of money for his personal use, had himself abstracted the bill belonging to his firm. Monsieur K. was then called in, and taxed by the judge with the deed. K., utterly taken aback, protested, but in vain. Allmayer, who was present, implored him to confess. The unfortunate man, still quite bewildered, stammered and stuttered, and gave so many indications of guilt that the judge committed him to Mazas. But as he was not quite satisfied with Allmayer, who, moreover, had a “history,” he sent him also to prison. Now the Allmayer family intervened, and, strongly suspecting that their son was really guilty, were glad to compromise the affair. Both the prisoners were then released, and Allmayer thought it prudent to cross the frontier. It was well he did so, for now the true inwardness of the story was revealed. Allmayer had secured the assistance of an old comrade in the Algerian discipline corps, whom he had taken with him first to a public telephone office, where the communication was made with the banker C. as though coming from K.’s offices. Then Allmayer sent this old soldier to receive the money on the bill, which he had appropriated some time previously. He pocketed the proceeds, and kept the lion’s share, for his comrade only got £200 and a suit of new clothes. Next morning he warned him to make himself scarce, declaring that all was discovered, and that he had better fly to Algeria. When Allmayer’s guilt was fully established, and he had been arrested and brought back to Paris, a search was made for the soldier, who was found in Algeria. In his pocket was a telegram from Allmayer warning him that “Joseph” was after him, and advising him to go to New York. Joseph, it must be understood, meant the detective-officer in pursuit.
It seemed unlikely that Allmayer would leave the Mazas prisonas easily now as on his first visit. But he made one of the most daring and successful escapes on record, passing through the gates of that gloomy stronghold quite openly. As he had to be interrogated day after day by the judge in his cabinet, he was taken to the prefecture, and managed, while seated at the table facing the judge, to abstract, almost from under that functionary’s nose, a sheet of official paper and an official envelope. This he accomplished by scattering his own papers, which were very numerous, upon the table, and mixing the official sheets with his own. He had already observed that the judge, in transmitting an order of release for some prisoner in Mazas, had not used a printed form, but had simply written a letter on a sheet of official paper. This was enough for Allmayer, who, when once again in the privacy of his cell, concocted the necessary order to the governor of Mazas, signed by the judge. This was the first step gained, but such a letter must be stamped with the judge’s seal to carry the proper weight. One morning, as he sat before the judge, he entered into an animated conversation with him, and suddenly, with a violent gesture, upset the ink-bottle over the uniform of the Garde de Paris who stood by his side. Allmayer, full of apology, pointed to the water-bottle on the mantelpiece, the Guard rushed towards it, the judge and the clerk following him with their eyes, and at that moment Allmayer, who had already the seal in his hand, stamped his letter. This was the second step. The third was to get his letter conveyed by some official hand to Mazas. For this he devised a fresh stratagem. On leaving the cabinet with his escort, he paused outside the door and said he had forgotten something. He re-entered the cabinet, and came out with his letter in his hand, saying indignantly, “The judge thinks I am one of his servants. Here, you, Monsieur le Garde, you had better carry this, or see it sent to Mazas.” Allmayer had barely returned to his cell in Mazas before a warder arrived with the welcome news that the judge had ordered him to be set free. That same evening he reached Brussels. As soon as his escape was discovered, the French authorities demanded his extradition; but the legal forms had not been strictly observed, and Allmayer was not surrendered. Belgium, however, refused to give him hospitality, and he was conducted to the German frontier, whence he gained the nearest port and embarked for Morocco.
At this time Allmayer was a gentlemanly, good-looking youth,
ALLMAYER UPSETTING THE INK-BOTTLE (p. 422).ALLMAYER UPSETTING THE INK-BOTTLE (p.422.)
with fair complexion and rosy cheeks and a heavy light moustache, and rather bald; his manners were so good, he was always so irreproachably dressed, that he easily passed himself off for a man of the highest fashion. He assumed many aliases, mostly with titles—the Vicomte de Bonneville, the Comte de Motteville, the Comte de Maupas, and so on. Sometimes he was satisfied with plain “Monsieur”, and was then generally Meyer or Mayer, which were his business names. His swindling was on a large scale. He bought and sold sheep and wool, and it was admitted by those whom he victimised that he had a natural talent forbusiness. One wool merchant whom he defrauded declared his surprise at finding this smart young gentleman so fully at home in the quality and character of the wools of the world. All this time he moved freely to and fro, returning frequently to France from Morocco, passing boldly through the capitals of Europe, staying even in Paris. The police knew he was there, but could not lay hands upon him. It was at Paris, under the name of Eugène Meyer, that he carried out one of his largest and most successful frauds. He was arranging for a supply of arms to the Sultan of Morocco, when he mentioned casually that a sum of £30,000 was owing to him by one of the largest bankers in Paris, who held his acceptance for the sum. The people present were willing enough to discount this acceptance, but the amount was too large to deal with as a whole. Meyer solved the difficulty by saying he would have it broken up into bills for smaller amounts, which, in effect, he produced, and which were willingly discounted. By-and-by it came out that the bills were forged, and those who held them were arrested; but Allmayer was gone. All he did was to write to the papers exonerating his unconscious accomplices, and offering to appear at their trial if the police would guarantee him a safe-conduct. But the police refused, and his unfortunate confederates were condemned.
Much astonishment and some indignation were expressed in Paris at the carelessness of the police in allowing Allmayer to remain at large. Yet all the time the detectives were at his heels, and followed him all over Europe—to Belgrade, to Genoa, back to Paris. At Marseilles he robbed a merchant, Monsieur R., of 20,000 francs by pretending to secure for him a contract for the French Government for sheep. It would be necessary, however, as he plausibly put it, to remit the above-mentioned sum anonymously to a certain high functionary. Allmayer attended at Monsieur R.’s office to give the address, which he himself wrote upon an envelope at Monsieur R.’s table. This done, Monsieur R. inserted the notes, and the letter was left there upon the blotting-pad—at least, so Monsieur R. believed, but Allmayer by a dexterous sleight of hand had substituted another exactly similar, while that with the notes was safely concealed in his pocket. It is said that the high functionary received a letter containing nothing but a number of pieces of old newspaper carefully cut to the size of bank notes, and didnot understand it until, later on, Monsieur R. wrote him a letter of sorrowful reproach at not having kept his word by giving the contract in exchange for the notes.
Still Allmayer pursued his adventurous career without interference, and the police were always a little too late to catch him. They heard of him at Lyons, where he passed as a cavalry officer and gave a grand banquet to his old comrades in the garrison; again, at Aix they were told of a sham Vicomte de Malville, who had played high at the casino, and unfairly, but he was gone before they could catch him. At Biarritz he signalised his stay by cheating, borrowing, and swindling on every side. The commissary of police at Bordeaux was warned to keep his eye upon this person, who passed as Monsieur Mario Magnan, but the commissary imprudently summoned the suspected person to his presence, and blurting out the story, gave Allmayer the chance of escape before the Parisian police arrived to arrest him. He had gone ostensibly to Paris, but his baggage was registered to Coutrai. The detective followed to Coutrai, and found that his quarry had gone on to Havre with several hours’ start. The man wanted was hunted for through Havre, but the covert was drawn blank till all at once, by that strange interposition of mere chance that so often tells against the criminal, the detectives came on him on the Boulevard Strasbourg, a perfect gentleman, fashionably dressed, with a lady on his arm in an elegant toilette. They laid hands on him a little doubtfully at first, but it proved to be Allmayer, although he vigorously denied his identity. This was practically the end of his criminal career, for he was speedily transferred to Paris and committed for trial, being located this time in the Conciergerie, under the constant surveillance of two police officers. Even there his mind was actively employed in planning escape; the scheme he tried was that of confiding to the head of police the whereabouts of a hidden receptacle of certain thieves, who had collected a quantity of plunder. If the officers would take him there, he would show them the place; it was in the Rue St. Maur, at Ménilmontant. But the authorities were not to be imposed upon, and, by inquiring elsewhere, learnt that the whole story was a fabrication. Allmayer had arranged that on arrival at the ground he should be rescued by a number of friends assembled for the purpose.
The secret of his many successes was that he was a consummate actor, and could play any part. Now an officer, he was cordially welcomed by his brothers in arms; at the watering-places and health resorts he posed and was accepted as a gentleman of rank and fashion; in commercial circles he appeared a quick and intelligent man of business. He practised the same art, but in quite a different direction, at his trial. A great interest was excited in Paris by the arrest of this notorious swindler, so clever at disguises, so bold in his schemes, who had so long set the police at defiance. Yet when he appeared in court he disappointed everyone, and showed up as a poor, timid, broken-backed creature, half imbecile, surely incapable of the daring crimes attributed to him. He told a rambling disconnected story of how he was wrongfully accused, that the chief agent in all these affairs was an old prison-bird whose acquaintance he had unhappily made, and who had bolted, leaving him to bear all the blame. His abject appearance and his poor, weak defence gained him the pity of his judges, and, instead of the heaviest, the lightest sentence was imposed upon him. All this was a clever piece of acting; he had assumed the part for the purpose which he had achieved.
Allmayer was sentenced to twelve years’ transportation, and he was last heard of in the Safety Islands, where he was employed as a hospital nurse, and had made himself very popular with his keepers. Someone who met him not long since describes him as still prepossessing, bright, intelligent eyes, fluent as ever in speech, but with a singularly false face. By-and-by he may reappear to despoil his more confiding fellows once more, and be the despair of the police.
This man was an extraordinary swindler who amassed considerable sums by his frauds. He came of a really good stock, and might have earned fame and fortune had he not been afflicted with incurably low tastes. Paraf was born about 1840 of a respectable family in Alsace; he was highly educated, and became a brilliant and expert chemist. The elder Paraf, his father, was a calico manufacturer, and he gladly placed his son at the head of his print works, where the young man’s knowledge and intelligence were most valuable. But once, while making a tour throughScotland, his funds ran short, and his father would not supply him with more money. So he carried an alleged newly discovered dye to a Glasgow manufacturer, and sold it for several thousand pounds, which sum, passing over to Paris, he quickly squandered in dissipation. The dye was worthless, but Paraf was not wholly an impostor, for, when once more penniless, he joined forces with his old professor in Paris, and together they discovered the famous aniline dyes. Paraf brought this invention to England, patented it, and sold it for a considerable sum. No doubt he would have made a great deal of money had he run straight, but he was an absolute spendthrift, and parted speedily with all he had. When utterly destitute, he stole the patent for another dye from a friend, and sold it to his uncle in Paris for a couple of thousand pounds. With what was left of this sum he started for America, and landed in New York, where he was well received. Of engaging person and frank manners, he gained the friendship and confidence of several capitalists, to one of whom he sold an aniline black dye for £12,000. He now launched out into a career of wild extravagance; he occupied magnificent rooms at a first-class hotel, bathed in sweet-scented waters, and gave sumptuous dinners at Delmonico’s. His money did not last long, and he had recourse to fresh swindles. His next transaction was the sale of an alleged cloverine dye to a damask manufacturer, and he persuaded Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, to invest £100,000 in a madder dye, which proved a failure. Then he became acquainted with a Frenchman, Monsieur Mourier, who invented oleo-margarine, the process of which Paraf stole from him and fraudulently sold to a New York firm. Mourier established his prior claim to the invention, and the firm had to buy their rights afresh.
After this Paraf found New York too hot for him. He went south to Chili, and promoted a company to extract gold from copper, but found it easier to extract it from other people’s pockets. This latest escapade finished him, for he was pursued and cast into prison, where he died.
The fact has often been noticed that crime takes larger developments to-day than heretofore. Schemes are larger, the plunder isgreater, the depredator travels over wider areas. He is often cosmopolitan; his transactions include the capitals of Europe, the great cities beyond the Atlantic, in India, and at the Antipodes. The immensity of the hauls made by daring swindlers misusing their powers as the guardians of public funds, was well shown in the Tammany frauds in the ’seventies, when “Boss” Tweed and his accomplices stole millions from the taxpayers of New York. The frauds which they successfully accomplished amounted, it was said, to twenty million dollars. They had an annual income of about that sum to play with, and they ran up as well a city debt of about a hundred million dollars. At that time the municipal administration of New York was abominably bad; the city was wretchedly lighted, badly paved, and the police protection not only imperfect but untrustworthy. The Tammany frauds were exposed, as we know, by an Englishman, Mr. Louis Jennings, the representative of theTimesin New York, who, coming by chance upon the fringe of the frauds, pursued his clue, despite many disheartening failures, until he obtained full success. He found that a most elaborate system of fraudulent entry in the city books covered the misappropriation of enormous sums. It was the custom to pay over hundreds of thousands of dollars, for work that was never accomplished, to persons who were either men of straw or had no corporeal existence. Thus £120,000 was charged for carpets in the Court House, and on inspection it was found that this Court House floor was covered with a common matting barely worth £20. In another building the plastering figured at £366,000, and the furniture, which consisted of a few stools and desks, ran up to a million and a half sterling. No wonder that in these glorious times “Boss” Tweed and his merry men became millionaires, having been penniless adventurers before. They kept steam yachts, drove fast trotters, their wives wore priceless diamonds, and they gave princely entertainments in brownstone mansions in Fifth Avenue and Madison Square. When fate at last overtook them, and landed most of them in the State prison, the ample funds at their disposal enabled them still to make life tolerable, and I myself have seen one or two of these most notorious swindlers smoking large cigars and lounging over novels in their snug cells at Sing Sing.
CAN THE LAW REACH HIM? (“BOSS” TWEED DEFYING THE LAW.) (From a Cartoon in “Harper’s Weekly” 1872)CAN THE LAW REACH HIM? (“BOSS” TWEED DEFYING THE LAW.)(From a Cartoon in “Harper’s Weekly” [1872])
Compared with these top-sawyers and high-flyers in crime we have little to show on this side of the Atlantic; but I may mention one or two notorious swindlers of these latter days, remarkable in their way for the dexterity and the pertinacity with which they pursue their nefarious trade. Every now and again the police lay their hands on some fine gentleman who is well received in society, like Benson, bearing some borrowed aristocratic name, but who is really an ex-convict repeating the game that originally got him into trouble. There was the man Burton, as he was generally called, who rejoiced in many aliases, such as Temple, Bouverie, Wilmot, St. Maur, Erskine, and many more, and whose career was summarily ended in 1876, when, as Count von Havard, he was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude for obtaining money by fraud. This man’s character may be gathered from the police description of him when he was once more at large. He was described as a native of Virginia, in the United States; was supposed to be a gentleman by birth and education, and spoke English with a slightly foreign accent. The police notice went on to say that he was “an accomplished swindler, an adept in every description of subterfuge and artifice; he tells lies with such a specious resemblance to truth that numerous persons have been deceived by him to their cost. He is highly educated, an excellent linguist, and also skilled in the dead languages, and his good address has obtained him an entrance into the very highest society abroad. By the adroit use of secret information of which he has become possessed he has extorted large sums as blackmail. One of his devices is to enter into a correspondence with relatives of deceased persons, leading them to suppose they arebénéficiairesunder wills, and thus obtain money to carry on preliminary inquiries. He frequently makes his claim through a respectable solicitor, whom he first dupes with an account of his brilliant connections and prospects. He represents himself as the son of a foreign nobleman, De Somerset St. Maur Wilmot, and claims relationship with several distinguished persons.”
He was in reality a very old offender, who had done more than one sentence in this country, and had probably known the interior of many foreign prisons. His operations extended throughout Europe, and he had visited the principal health resorts and holidayplaces of the Continent, such as Biarritz, Homburg, Ostend; and this constant movement to and fro no doubt helped him to elude the police.
A CELL IN SING SING PRISON.A CELL IN SING SING PRISON.WHERE THE SING SING PRISONERS DINE.CORRIDOR IN SING SING PRISON.
Another man of the same stamp, calling himself Dr. Vivian, of New York, burst upon the world of Birmingham, about 1884 as a man of vast wealth, which he spent with a most lavish hand. He stopped at the best hotel in the town, the Queen’s, and got into society. One day, at a flower-show, he was introduced to a Miss W., to whom he at once paid his addresses, and madesuch rapid progress in her good graces that they were married by special licence a week or two later. The wedding was of the most splendid description; the happy bridegroom had presented his wife with quantities of valuable jewellery, and he was so well satisfied with the arrangements at the church that he gave the officiating clergyman a fee of £500. After a magnificent wedding breakfast at the Queen’s Hotel, the newly married couple proceeded to London, and were next heard of at the Langham, living in the most expensive style. The bridegroom spent large sums among the London tradesmen, and, strange to say, invariably paid cash. All this time a man who had much the appearance of Dr. Vivian was greatly wanted by the police; the person in question had been down in Warwickshire a few months previous to the arrival of Dr. Vivian at Birmingham. This person was strongly suspected of a theft at an hotel at Whitchurch. A visitor at the hotel had been robbed one night of a certain sum in cash and a number of very valuable old coins. Now the police became satisfied that Dr. Vivian and the man wanted for this theft were one and the same person, and the authorities of Scotland Yard took the decided step of arresting him. They went farther, and had the audacity to declare that the so-called Dr. Vivian was one James Barnet, otherwise George Percy, otherwise George Guelph, a notorious convict, only recently released after a term of ten years’ penal servitude.
When arrested, Vivian, as we will still call him, was found to be in possession of a large amount of money, much more than could have come from the hotel robbery at Whitchurch; he had a roll of notes to the value of some two thousand pounds, and a great deal of gold. The impression was that a part of this was the proceeds of another hotel robbery from a bookmaker at Manchester. The notes, however, when examined, were found to be all of one date, some ten or twelve years back, antecedent to his last conviction, and it seemed most improbable that he could have come upon these in the ordinary way of robbery. It was far more likely that they were forged notes (although this was never proved) which had been “planted” safely somewhere while he was at large, and that on his release he had drawn upon the deposit. At the same time there had been some serious thefts at the Langham Hotel during the prisoner’s honeymoon residence, and there is very little doubtthat Vivian,aliasBarnet, was an accomplished hotel thief. Many curious facts came out while he was in custody. He was identified as a man who had wandered from hotel to hotel in the Midlands, changing his appearance continually, but not enough to defy detection. He carried with him a large wardrobe as his stock-in-trade, and was seldom seen in the same suit of clothes two days together. He had had several narrow escapes, and before his final escapade had been arrested in Derby by a detective, who was pretty certain that he had “passed through his hands.” The accumulated evidence against him was strong, and when put upon his trial for the particular theft at the Whitchurch hotel, he was found guilty and sentenced to another ten years’ seclusion.
The convict swindler when at large has many lines of operation, and a favourite one is the assumption of the clerical character. This is generally done by criminals who at one time or another have been in holy orders, and have been unfrocked for their misdeeds. Dr. Berrington was a notable instance of this. Although he was repeatedly convicted of performing clerical functions, for which he was altogether disqualified, he kept up the game to the last. In one of his short periods of freedom he had the effrontery to take the duties of a country rector, and, as such, accepted an invitation to dine at a neighbouring squire’s. Strange to say, the carriage which he hired from the livery stables of the nearest town was driven by a man who, like himself, was a licence-holder, and who had last seen his clerical fare when they were both inmates of Dartmoor prison. Berrington had no doubt been in the Church at one time, and was a ripe scholar. The story goes that during one of his imprisonments he was amusing himself in the school hour with a Hebrew grammar. “What! Do you know Hebrew?” said a visitor to the gaol who was passing through the ward. “Yes,” replied Berrington, “and I daresay a great deal better than you do.”
There was another reverend gentleman, who was an ordained priest in the Church of England, and had once held an Irish living worth £400 a year, but had lost every shilling he was worth on the turf. One day, when seized with the old gambling mania, he made an improper use of a friend’s cheque-book. He wasstaying at this friend’s house, and forged his name, having found the cheque-book accessible. He was soon afterwards arrested on Manchester racecourse, and, after trial, sentenced to transportation for life.
In December, 1886, another clerical impostor caused some noise, and there is some reason to suppose from his own story that he had actually been ordained a priest in the Church of Rome. This rests on his own statement, no doubt, made when on his trial in Dublin for obtaining money under false pretences, the latest of a long series of similar offences. At that time he rejoiced in several aliases, Keatinge being the commonest, but he was also known as Moreton, with many variations of Christian names. His offence was that he had received frequent help from the Priests’ Protection Society, on the pretence that he had left the Church of Rome and that his abjuration of the old faith had left him in great distress. The society on these grounds had made him an allowance, and he had often preached and performed clerical duty in Dublin churches. He was charged with having falsely represented himself to be a clergyman in holy orders, but his own story was very precise and circumstantial. Keatinge made out that he had studied at Stonyhurst and then at St. Michael’s College, Brussels; thence he went to Rome, was admitted to orders, and for some time held the post of Latin translator and general secretary to Cardinal Pecci of Perugia, afterwards Pope Leo XIII. After that, he said, he became chaplain and secretary to Cardinal d’Andrea, and was soon afterwards given the degree of Doctor of Divinity and made a Monsignore. He declared that he had become involved in the political struggle between Cardinal d’Andrea and Cardinal Antonelli, and was imprisoned with the former in the latter Cardinal’s palace. From that time forth Dr. Keatinge was the victim of constant persecution, but at last escaped from Rome, by the assistance of a lady, who afterwards became his wife, when he had seceded from the Roman Church. After that he appears to have lapsed into a life of vagabondage and questionable adventure. He suffered many convictions, mostly for false pretences, and the Dublin affair relegated him once more to gaol.
One of the most daring and successful of modern swindlers was Harry Benson, who came into especial prominence in connectionwith the Goncourt frauds and the disloyalty of certain London detectives. His was a brief and strangely romantic career of crime; he was not much more than forty when it terminated with his death, yet he had netted vast sums by his ingenious frauds, and had long lived a life of cultured ease, respected and outwardly most respectable. He came of very decent folk; his father was a prosperous merchant, established in Paris, with offices in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and a person of undeniably good repute. Young Benson was well and carefully educated: he spoke several languages with ease and correctness; he was a good musician, was well read, had charming manners, a suave and polished address. But from the earliest days his moral sense was perverted; he could not and would not run straight. Benson belonged by nature to the criminal class, and if we are to believe Lombroso and the Italian school, he was a born criminal. All his tastes and predilections were towards fraud and foul play.
Young Benson seems to have first made his appearance in Brussels in 1870-71, when he was prominent among the French refugees who left France at the time of the Franco-German war. He had assumed the name and title of the Comte de Montague, pretending to be the son of a General de Montague, an old Bonapartist. He lived in fine style, had carriages and horses, a sumptuousappartement, gave many entertainments, and was generally a very popular personage, much esteemed for his great courtliness and his pleasant, insinuating address. Nothing is known of the sources of his wealth at this period, but his first trouble with the law came of a nefarious attempt to add to them. One day the Comte de Montague called at the Mansion House, in London, and besought the Lord Mayor’s charitable aid for the town of Châteaudun, which had suffered much from the ravages of the war. Money was being very freely subscribed to relieve French distress at the time, and the Comte had no difficulty in obtaining a grant of a thousand pounds for Châteaudun. This he at once proceeded to apply to his own needs, for the Comte was no other than Benson. His imposture was presently discovered, and he paid a second visit to the Mansion House, but this time as a prisoner. The escapade ended in a sentence of a year’s imprisonment, during which he appears to have set his cell on fire and burned himself badly. He was ever afterwards lame, and obliged to use crutches;an unmistakable addition to hissignalementwhich would have seriously handicapped any less audacious offender.
The more extensive of the operations in which Benson was engaged followed upon his release from gaol. He was estranged from his family in Paris, and, being obliged to earn his own living, he advertised himself as seeking the place of secretary, giving his knowledge of several languages as one of his qualifications. This brought him into connection with a man who was to be his confederate and partner in many nefarious schemes. A certain William Kurr engaged him, and they soon came to an understanding, becoming associated on equal terms. Kurr was a very shady character, who had tried several lines of life. From clerk in a railway office he passed into the service of a West End money-lender, and then became interested in turf speculations. The business of illegitimate betting attracted him as offering great opportunities for acquiring fortune, and he was the originator of several sham firms and bogus offices, none of which prospered greatly until he fell in with Benson. From that time forth their operations were on a much bolder and more successful scale. Benson’s ready wit and inventive genius struck out new lines of procedure, and there is little doubt that quite early in the partnership he conceived the happy idea of suborning the police. Kurr, under the name of Gardner and Co., of Edinburgh, had come under suspicion, and was being hotly pursued by a detective officer, Meiklejohn, who had been chosen from among the Scotland Yard officers to act for the Midland Railway in the north. When the scent was hottest, Kurr, by Benson’s advice, approached Meiklejohn and bought him over. This was the first step in a great conspiracy which presently involved other officers, who weakly sacrificed honour and position to the specious temptations of these scoundrels.
Benson, being half a Frenchman, and intimately acquainted with French ways, saw a great opening for carrying on turf frauds in France. The firm accordingly moved over to French soil, and elaborated with great skill and patience a vast scheme for entrapping the unwary. They first worked carefully through the directories, Bottin’s and others, in order to obtain the names and addresses of likely victims; when eventually they were brought to justice some of these books were found in Benson’s quarters, much marked and annotated. At the same time they prepared an