They spent their time in gambling, quarrelling, and thieving from one another. In these relaxations the crew generally joined, as it was impossible to prevent intercommunication between convicts and sailors. The latter were not always immaculate, and were not seldom charged with purloining the private property of the prisoners, which had been provided by friends when leaving England. The medium forgambling was chiefly the wine and lime juice issued as part of the daily rations. If the convicts had money—which was unusual, except in small quantities—then they played for cash, but this was prevented by taking all money from them, as far as possible, on embarkation, to be kept for them till the voyage was at an end. The other method of speculation was also checked to some extent by "strictly observing that the allowance of wine and lime juice is taken by every convict in the presence of an officer at the time of distribution." Another plan was to deprive the offenders of their allowance, but to compel them to attend at the "grog-tub," and administer that which they had thus forfeited to some other prisoner who had behaved well.
The only discipline enforced on board was just so much as was necessary to insure a moderate amount of repression. For this purpose the people were all for a time in irons; for the same reason, only certain fixed proportions of the whole number were allowed upon deck at one time. As a final bulwark behind all, should an ultimate appeal to the strong arm be at any time needed, stood the military guard. Every ship carried a detachment of soldiers: recruits sometimes, going out as drafts to join their regiments in Australia; at others, part of a battalion, which embarked in instalments on ship after ship, ending, according to one writer, with the commanding officer and the band. The guard, or the portion of it actually on duty, always carried loadedfirearms; from it came sentries forever on the watch, some at the doors of the prisons, others upon the poop. As a general rule, ships with poops were preferred for convict ships, because the soldiers stationed thereon were sufficiently elevated above the deck to be able to control the movements of the convicts at exercise below, though altogether separated from them.
The dread of some outbreak among the "people," or convicts, seems to have been an ever present sensation with those in authority on board these ships. Nor was the alarm confined to those connected with the ship itself. Whenever a strange sail, in those days of profound peace, appeared above the horizon, she was set down always as a convict ship seized by its felon passengers, who were supposed to have turned pirates and to have hoisted the black flag to range the high seas in search of plunder. I suppose there was not one among the hundred ships that left the Nore or the Mother Bank, through the long years that transportation lasted, in which rumours of conspiracy did not prevail at some time or other during the passage. Yet nine times out of ten these fears were absolutely groundless. Outbreaks did occur, of course; but few of them were serious in nature, and nearly all were forestalled by the timely perfidy of one of the conspirators. Colonel Breton, in his evidence before the parliamentary committee of 1837, said that he had heard of one ship with female convicts which had been captured by the crewand carried into Rio. But I can find no corroboration of this statement elsewhere. The same authority talks vaguely of another plot in his own ship, which came to nothing, because another and a more desperate character turned informer. Convict ships with females on board were as a rule more easily managed than those with males. But the following extract from a letter from the matron on board the convict shipElizabeth and Henry, in 1848, relates a curious incident:—
"Off Cape of Good Hope(April 30th).—We were likely to have a mutiny on board a few weeks since. The [female] prisoners laid a plan for strangling the doctor, but providentially it was made known by M. A. Stewart, a convict, just before it was executed. McNalty and Brennan were the ringleaders in the affair. When it was known, the officers of the ship went down in the prison with firearms. Fancy the scene! The doctor has now promised to forgive them if they conduct themselves well the rest of the voyage."
More serious was the conspiracy which was discovered in a ship of which Doctor Galloway, R. N., was the surgeon-superintendent. This was brought to light just after the ship had left Plymouth Sound—as a general rule all such attempts are made in the early part of a voyage—and it was discovered by a sentinel who overheard a fragment of a conversation by the hatchway during the morning watch. The plot was cleverly laid. The convictshad observed that the old guard discharged their firelocks always at sunrise, and that the new guard did not reload till eleven o'clock. They planned therefore to mutiny in the early morning, just after the guard had fired, resolving to seize these weapons, and then overpower the captain, the rest of the soldiers, and the crew. The total strength of the military detachment was forty, and the convicts were two hundred and fifty. The plotters of this outbreak were promptly punished on proof of their guilt, twelve of them being carried in double irons for seven or eight weeks.
In one of the earliest ships the opposing parties actually came to blows—so says one Barrington, at least, who went as a convict in 1790 to Botany Bay. The memoirs of this man (a very different person from Sir Jonah Barrington) were widely successful, and soon ran through several editions. His career of crime was more than curious. His London hunting-grounds were royal levées, court balls, Ranelagh, and the opera-house. At the palace he found it easy in the crush to cut the diamonds out of orders and stars. At the opera he picked Prince Orloff's pocket of a snuff-box worth £30,000, but being collared by the owner he restored the booty. He was eventually transported for stealing a gold watch at Enfield races from Mr. H. H. Townshend. According to Barrington's account two Americans among the people persuaded the others to conspire to seize the ship. They declared that the captureeffected, it would be easy to carry the prize into some American port, where all would receive a hearty welcome. Not only would all obtain their liberty as a matter of course, but Congress would give them also a tract of land, and a share of the money accruing from the sale of the ship and her cargo.
The plan of action was to seize the arm-chest while the officers were at dinner. This was kept upon the quarter-deck, under the charge of sentries. The latter were to be engaged in conversation till the supreme moment arrived, and then, at a signal given, seized. This was to be followed by a general rush on deck of all the convicts from below. Barrington relates that he was standing with the man at the wheel when the mutiny actually broke out. Hearing a scuffle upon the main deck, he was on the point of going forward, when he was stopped by one of the Americans, who made a stroke at his head with a sword taken from a sentry. "Another snapped at me a pistol. I had a handspike, and felled the first to the ground." Meanwhile the man at the wheel ran down and gave the alarm. The captain was below, seeing to the stowage of some wine; but Barrington held the mutineers at bay, at the head of the companion ladder, till the captain came up with a blunderbuss in his hand and fired. This dispersed the enemy, and they thereupon retired. An immediate example was made of the ringleaders in this affair. Two were forthwith hangedat the yard-arm, and a number flogged. To Barrington, the captain and his officers were profuse in thanks, and at the end of the voyage they made him a substantial present. Told in Mr. Barrington's own words, the story of this mutiny tends rather to his own glorification. It is just possible that he may have exaggerated some of the details—his own valiant deeds with the rest. This trusty convict was received into high favour on landing in New South Wales and after holding several subordinate appointments became at length a police officer and gained high rank.
But as a rule the efforts made by the convicts to rise against their rulers on shipboard were futile in the extreme. Even Mr. Commissioner Bigge, in 1822, laughs at all notion of the convicts combining to capture the ships. He is commenting on the different practice of different doctors and captains, as to allowing the people upon deck and removing their irons. Some, he says, who are inexperienced and timid, dread the assemblage of even half on the upper deck, and they would not for worlds remove the irons till the voyage is half over. Others do not care if all the people come up together, and they take off all irons before the ship is out of the Channel. But he considers free access to the deck so important in preserving discipline, as well as health, during the voyage, that "no unwarrantable distrust of the convicts" ought to interfere with it, and "no apprehension of any combined attemptto obtain possession of the ship." He thus continues:—
"The fear of combinations among the convicts to take the ship is proved by experience of later years to be groundless; and it may be safely affirmed, that if the instructions of the navy board are carried into due effect by the surgeon-superintendent and the master, and if the convicts obtain the full allowance of provisions made to them by government, as well as reasonable access to the deck, they possess neither fidelity to each other, nor courage sufficient to make any simultaneous effort that may not be disconcerted by timely information, and punished before an act of aggression is committed. A short acquaintance with the characters of the convicts, promises of recommendation to the governor on their arrival in New South Wales, and an ordinary degree of skill in the business of preventive police, will at all times afford means of obtaining information."
The passage out of all these convict ships was upon the whole exceedingly prosperous. The voyage could be performed with perfect safety. Mr. Bigge says that up to his time no ships had arrived disabled; more than this, no disasters had occurred to any in Bass Straits, where serious mishaps so frequently happened. The chief and only difficulty really was the tendency to delay upon the road. There was a great temptation to both master and surgeon to call at Rio. All sorts of excuses weremade to compass this—that the ship was running short of water, for instance, or that the passengers absolutely required a change of diet. Sugar was to be bought at Rio, and tobacco, and with a freight of these the officials could make a profitable speculation on reaching Sydney. For the doctor the temptation was especially strong, because he was for years allowed to land his goods at New South Wales duty-free. But if the superiors thus benefited themselves, it was at the cost of the discipline of the convicts, such as it was. The ship was for the time neglected utterly; the captain was busy and so was the doctor with their commercial enterprises. The convicts, for security's sake, were relegated to irons; but they found means to obtain spirits from shore, and wholesale intoxication and demoralisation naturally followed. In view of all this the masters of convict ships were ordered to make the run outwards direct. The requisite supplies might be calculated with care in advance, so as to preclude the chance of any scarcity before the end of the voyage. But if it so happened that to touch at some port or other was imperative, then the Cape of Good Hope was to be invariably chosen instead of Rio.
These orders to bear up for the Cape in case of necessity were clearly right and proper, but in one case they were attended with very serious consequences. I allude to the loss of theWaterlooconvict ship in Table Bay, in September, 1842. In this case scurvy had appeared on board, and thereforethe surgeon-superintendent gave the master a written order to change his course. It was necessary to touch at the Cape to obtain supplies of vegetables and fresh meat. To Table Bay they came in due course, and there remained—ignorant, seemingly, of the danger they ran, of which they would have been duly warned had the naval authorities been aware of their arrival. But the surgeon-superintendent failed to report it; and "in this omission," says Vice-Admiral Sir E. King when animadverting upon the whole occurrence, "he has only followed the common and very reprehensible neglect of duty in this respect of surgeon-superintendents of convict ships." Ill-luck followed theWaterloo. The master went on shore and left his ship to the care of his chief mate, a young and inexperienced seaman, who showed himself when the moment of emergency came either utterly incompetent or culpably negligent—probably both. One of those sudden gales which frequently ravage Table Bay rose without warning, and theWaterloowent straight on the rocks. Nothing was done to save her. The masts were not cut away, and everybody on board seemed helpless. Another ship, the transportAbercrombie Robinson, which was lying in Table Bay at the time, was also driven ashore; but her people were rescued, and she did not become an entire wreck. But the moment theWaterloostruck she broke up, and went to pieces. Terrible loss of life followed: 188 out of a total of 302 on board were drowned, andbut for the merest chance not a soul among the convict passengers would have reached the land alive. The prisoners had been at first set free, but they were then ordered below again by the surgeon-superintendent, who feared they would rush violently into the surf boats coming to the rescue, and so swamp them. The poor creatures went below—obediently enough, and then followed one of those fatal but inexplicable mistakes which might have led to the most terrible consequences. The doctor as a matter of precaution had ordered the prisons to be bolted down, but the bolts in the hatches could have been easily at any moment withdrawn. However, the officious corporal in command of the military guardproprio motuaffixed a padlock to the bolt to make it secure, and forgot to take it off again. The excuse made for him was that he was "under the influence of the panic incident to the unexpected and almost instantaneous demolition of the ship." Thus several hundred men were in momentary danger of being drowned like rats in a hole. "Most providentially," says the report from which I quote, "the awful consequences of the unaccountable conduct of the corporal were averted by one of the prisoners striking off the padlock with a hammer that had accidentally been left in the prison early that morning, it having been used to remove the irons from the only prisoners who wore them for some offence." So the convicts reached the deck in time to avail themselves of such means of escape asoffered. But these were few. Had the masts been cut down, when the long boat was lowered, they might have formed a temporary bridge over which the people might have passed in comparative safety to the surf boats. As it was, nearly two-thirds of them were drowned.
This catastrophe attracted great attention at the time. At Cape Town the sudden and apparently unaccountable destruction of the ship led to great excitement in the public mind. A very searching inquiry was therefore set on foot. Thedébrisof the wreck having been carefully examined by Captain Sir John Marshall, R. N., he reported unhesitatingly that theWaterloomust have been unseaworthy when she left England. "General decay and rottenness of the timbers appeared in every step we took." She had been repeatedly repaired at considerable outlay, but she had run so long that she was quite beyond cure.
As a further explanation of the disaster the mate and crew were charged with being drunk at the time the ship struck. But the only evidence in support of this was an intercepted letter of one of the convicts who had been saved. He asserted that the chief mate could not keep his legs; that in trying to drive in a nail he staggered and fell. The rolling of the vessel was deemed a more than sufficient explanation of this. Another charge was made against one of the seamen who swam back to the ship after he had once actually reached the shore. No manin his sober senses, urged the convict witness, would have risked his life in this way; whereas it was clearly proved that no man otherwise than sober could possibly have battled successfully with the surf.
It is but fair to add that the unseaworthy condition of theWaterloowas distinctly denied at Lloyd's. They certified that at the time of sailing she was "in an efficient state of repair and equipment, and fully competent for the safe performance of any voyage to any part of the world." And as the credit of the transport office had been more or less impugned, a return was about this time called for by the House, of the number of convict-ships which had foundered at sea, or not been heard of, between 1816 and 1842. It was satisfactorily shown that in this way not one single ship had been lost through all those years.
But there had been other shipwrecks, and among these none with more fatal results than that of theAmphitrite, which went ashore at Boulogne, in September, 1833. The story of this mishap is an instructive homily in more ways than one. The ship was proceeding gaily down channel, with a freight of one hundred and eight female convicts, when she was met by a violent and unexpected gale, accompanied by a very heavy sea. She was on a lee shore. The conduct of the master in presence of danger is described as seamanlike, judicious, and decisive. Seeing no help for it, and that he could not save hisvessel from the land, he said openly to the mate that he must look for the best berth and run her straight on shore. They ran her up as high as possible, hoping the tide as it rose would drive her higher. Then with as much complacency as if they were safely lodged in a secure harbour, the crew went below, had supper, and turned in. Before daybreak the ship was smashed to atoms and only three lives were saved. The ship's fate was indeed sealed from the moment she went ashore. Nothing possibly could have saved her, and it was a matter of surprise to all who witnessed the catastrophe that she was not deserted while there was yet time. "All might have been saved, but for the deplorable error in judgment on the part of the crew."
More than this, the lives of the female convicts, at least, might have been preserved but for the strange obstinacy of the surgeon's wife. According to the evidence of one of the survivors, the doctor ordered the long boat to be lowered soon after the ship struck. He was not in the least afraid of losing his prisoners, and meant to put them all forthwith on shore. Here, however, his wife interposed. She would not go ashore in the boat. Nothing would induce her to sit in the same boat with the convicts. "Her pride," says the narrator, "revolted at the idea." Whether her husband expostulated does not appear; in the end he gave way. No boat should leave the ship that night. Nextmorning it was too late. Complete destruction, as I have said, followed the rising of the tide.
Upon the introduction of the new régime by the Act of 1843, embarkation of drafts for Australia took place every week or two from the stone steps on the river bank, opposite the main entrance of Millbank prison. As the dawn broke the convicts filed silently across the deserted roadway, and aboard the tug that was to convey them to the Nore. Only the night previous were they made aware that the hour of their departure had arrived. Then had followed such necessary preparations as a close medical inspection, to guard against the propagation of infectious disease; shaving, bathing, and the issue of the necessary clothing and kit bags. Every convict was furnished with a new suit, which was to last him all the voyage; but they carried a second suit in their bags, with underclothing, and, in some cases, an outfit to serve on landing at their journey's end. Substantial shoes and gray guernsey nightcaps completed their attire.
The next morning the whole draft was wakened about three o'clock, and breakfasted. They were then marched to the reception ward, where their names were called over by the chief warder. Next came the "shackling," or chaining them together in gangs of ten men upon one chain, the chain passing through a bracelet on each man's arm. The same plan is pursued to this day in ordinary removals from prison to prison, except that a D lockis now introduced between every two prisoners. This practically handcuffs the men together two and two. Under the old system, if one link in the chain was cut, the whole ten were free; now, when a link goes fivecouplesonly are set loose. As soon as these precautions were completed, the side door of the reception ward was opened, and the prisoners passed on to the outer gate, and so to the river side.
If the embarkation was to be at low tide, old Collins, a well-known bargee, who had permission to make his boats fast opposite the Millbank steps, had brought them some hours before and run them aground so as to form a passage or gangway to the steam-tug. This Collins was a well-known character in his time and later served as the model for Rogue Riderhood in "Our Mutual Friend." His spare hours were devoted to gathering up the bodies of people drowned in the Thames. It was said that he had secured in this way no fewer than two hundred corpses. The parish authorities paid him at the rate of ten shillings per head. It was his invariable custom, so he assured the coroner, to wash the face of every corpse he picked up and kiss it. But he did other jobs, such as dredging for sand, which he sold to the builders, and anything else that he might pick up. It was all fish that came to his net. On one occasion he found a bag full of sovereigns, upon which, so the story runs, both he and his family lived gloriously till the money was all gone. This piece of luck proved fatal to his wife. Returning fromone of her drinking bouts to their home on board a barge—for Collins occupied the oldest of his boats, roofed in—Mrs. Collins slipped off the plank into the Thames, and was picked up by her husband next day. He had lived all his life in this barge, rearing there a large family, most of whom, I believe, turned out ill. His daughters were, however, known as the best oarswomen on the river. Poor old Collins himself came to a bad end. He was caught in his old age, in the act of stealing coals from a neighbouring barge, and for this he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. When he came out his barges were sold, and the place knew him no more. But for many years he actively assisted in all embarkations from Millbank stairs.
Of course there was a large staff of officials who were really responsible. In charge of all generally went the deputy-governor, and under him were sometimes as many as thirty warders. Their duties were principally to insure safe custody, and to enforce silence and soberness of demeanour on the passage down stream. Occasionally the tug halted at Woolwich, to take in more passengers from the hulks; more often it made the run direct to Gravesend or the Nore. Here, with blue peter flying and anchor atrip, was the prison ship waiting for its living cargo. The surgeon-superintendent was on board, ready to sign receipts for the bodies of all committed to his charge; the convicts climbed the sides, were unshackled, told off to messes, and sentbelow. Before mid-day the ship had got under weigh, and had taken her place among the rest of the outward bound.
The interior fittings of all the old convict ships varied little. The "prison" occupied the main deck. It was separated fore and aft by strong bulkheads, sheeted with iron. In the forward part the crew lodged as usual; aft, the military guard. The only access from the prison to the deck was by the main hatchway. This was secured by barred gates at the foot of the ladder, so that the prison within looked like a huge cage. A substantial bulkhead ran across the upper deck, dividing the part used by the prisoners from the poop. There were doors in this, at each of which a sentry was always stationed. The hatches were also provided with stout padlocks. The "prison" was divided into "bunks" or "bays," as in a troop-ship, each of which had a table for eight men, and at night eight hammocks. For a long time prison ships sailed always without any special staff for supervision. Later a small proportion of warders embarked in each. During the day these officers took turns to patrol the deck and keep a general look-out. But on the whole, they preferred to interfere as little as possible with the "people." At night five convict sentries kept watch on deck, and were held responsible that no others came up; but below, the prisoners were left entirely to themselves. This, of itself, was one of the chief blots in the whole plan of deportation. To permitmen of this class to herd together just as they please, is the surest way to encourage the spread of wickedness and vice. The tendency of any collection of human beings, it is to be feared, is rather to sink to the level of the worst than to rise to that of the best. In a ship load of convicts, free to talk and associate at all hours of the day and night, the deterioration is almost inevitable. For this reason, the elaborate machinery for providing for the religious wants and teaching of the ships sent out in later years was rendered nearly useless. A slight veneer of propriety in diction and demeanour might lie on top, but beneath, the real stuff was as bad as ever. It could not be denied even in after years, when every possible precaution had been taken. It was admitted, before the parliamentary commission on transportation in 1861, that "the horrors of convict ships were really past description." The arrangements for the conveyance of convicts by sea were never really put on a satisfactory footing until 1870, when the steamshipLondonwas especially fitted up for the purpose of taking convicts to Gibraltar; a portion of her forward hold was turned into a "prison," in every respect the same as a separate prison on shore. Here officers patrolled on duty day and night. This, with the rapidity of the voyage, reduced the chances of contamination to the lowest.
The Convict Ship Success Tasmania
The Convict Ship "Success;" Tasmania
On the convict ship transporting prisoners to the Antipodes it was necessary in order to maintain discipline to put them all in irons for a part of the voyage. The worst class of convicts were sent to Tasmania from the prisons of England, where they remained until by good conduct they were removed to the probation gang; the second stage in the elaborate scheme for convict colonies which ended so disastrously.
On the convict ship transporting prisoners to the Antipodes it was necessary in order to maintain discipline to put them all in irons for a part of the voyage. The worst class of convicts were sent to Tasmania from the prisons of England, where they remained until by good conduct they were removed to the probation gang; the second stage in the elaborate scheme for convict colonies which ended so disastrously.
I cannot refrain, however, from paying a tribute here to one who appears to have worked wondersin the various ships he had in charge. I allude to Dr. C. A. Browning, R. N., who has himself, in "The Convict Ship and England's Exiles," given us an interesting account of his labours, and the success that attended them. He was clearly a man of great piety, gifted also with singular earnestness of character. The influence of such a person cannot fail to be soon felt, especially in a society of which he is himself the recognised head. Wonderful as were the results obtained by Dr. Browning, they are substantiated by the testimony of high colonial officials. Writing on the subject, Sir George Arthur, the lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen's Land, says, "The convicts brought out in theArab, in 1834, were put on board, I have every reason to believe, as ignorant, as profane, and in every respect as reckless as transported criminals usually are. But when they were disembarked, it was evident the character of many of them had undergone a most remarkable change. Their tempers had been subdued; they had been induced to think and reflect; and they had been instructed, so as to know them familiarly, in the principles of religion." It was said that in after years the convicts whom Dr. Browning reformed, seldom if ever fell away; but on this point I can find no reliable evidence. That quoted above refers only to these men at the moment they landed on shore, when Dr. Browning's impressive lessons were still ringing in their ears. An examination of the parliamentary returns,however, leads me to conclude that instances of after misconduct, as proved by the number of convictions, summary and otherwise, were just as plentiful among the men of Dr. Browning's ships as of any others.
But I should be loath to detract from Dr. Browning, who, besides being a preacher of some power, was also a practical man with considerable talent for organisation. His ships must have been patterns of propriety and cleanliness. Yet he worked single-handed. The only officials under him were convicts chosen among the "people," according to character received with them, and "the impression," to use his own words, "formed on my own mind by the expression of their countenances, and general demeanour." At the doctor's right hand was the first captain, who was at the head of the whole establishment; next to him came a second captain; and below them the captains of divisions. Each had his duties prescribed according to a carefully prepared scale. There were also appointed cooks, barber, delegates, head of messes, a clerk, librarian, hospital steward, and, last, not least, schoolmasters and inspectors of schools. The routine of work for every day of the week was also laid down, and was punctually carried out. As a rule, after the necessary cleaning operations, it resolved itself almost entirely into school instruction, and constant exhortation from the surgeon himself. Dr. Browning was apparently much beloved even bythe convicts; and his orders are said to have been readily and implicitly obeyed. In return his confidence in them was so great that when he was attacked with serious illness he had his hammock hung inside on the prison deck, and gave himself up to be nursed altogether by the convicts.
In after years the example set by Dr. Browning was so far followed that every ship carried a religious instructor to teach, and perform the services—duties which every surgeon-superintendent could not be expected to perform, as did Dr. Browning. These instructors were selected from among the Scripture readers and schoolmasters at Millbank or Pentonville, and no doubt they were conscientious men, fairly anxious to do their best. But this best fell far short of that which an enthusiast of superior education like Dr. Browning could accomplish; and in most of the ships, in spite of all the efforts of the instructors, wickedness reigned supreme to the last.
Notorious individuals exiled—Murderous assaults on the Queen—Bank frauds—Burgess and the Bank of England—Robbery of Rogers' Bank—Fraud and embezzlement—Walter Watts—Robert F. Pries—Joseph Windle Cole—Strahan, Paul and Bates—Aristocratic bankers—Robson—Redpath—Enormous stealings—Great gold robbery on the South-Eastern Railway—Agar, Pierce and Tester—Extensive forgeries—Saward or "Jim the Penman"—Vicissitudes of a convict's life—Journeys round the world.
Notorious individuals exiled—Murderous assaults on the Queen—Bank frauds—Burgess and the Bank of England—Robbery of Rogers' Bank—Fraud and embezzlement—Walter Watts—Robert F. Pries—Joseph Windle Cole—Strahan, Paul and Bates—Aristocratic bankers—Robson—Redpath—Enormous stealings—Great gold robbery on the South-Eastern Railway—Agar, Pierce and Tester—Extensive forgeries—Saward or "Jim the Penman"—Vicissitudes of a convict's life—Journeys round the world.
So long as the law ordained that removal to a far-off land should be the invariable fate of every offender who escaped "vertical punishment," as hanging was sometimes styled, we must certainly find the most notable criminals in the stream setting unceasingly southward. It will be interesting and instructive to present here some of the most notable or notorious individuals who thus left their country "for their country's good" and still more for their own, as shown in many remarkable instances on preceding pages. For a long time the great mass of passing criminality hardly rises above the commonplace, for the simple reason that the worst individuals, under the sanguinary British code of those days, were peremptorily "finished" on thescaffold. But as death penalties diminished, expatriation overtook many vicious criminals and it is with some of these that I now propose to deal.
The assassination of or the murderous assault on crowned heads and chief magistrates has been too sadly characteristic of modern crime. One tried in England upon the person of the young Queen Victoria in 1842 created a great sensation in London. The perpetrator was a certain John Francis who, moved, as was supposed, by a thirst for notoriety, fired a shot at the Queen as she was driving back to Buckingham Palace. The deed was premeditated and would have been put into execution a day earlier had not his courage failed him. A youth had seen him point a pistol at the Queen's carriage, but drop it exclaiming, "I wish I had done it." The boy weakly allowed Francis to go off without securing his apprehension, but later gave full information. The Queen was apprised of the danger, and was implored to remain within doors; but she declared she would not remain a prisoner in her own palace, and next day drove out as usual in an open barouche. Nothing happened until Her Majesty returned to Buckingham Palace about six o'clock, when, on descending Constitution Hill, with an equerry riding close on each side of her carriage, a man who had been leaning against the palace garden wall suddenly advanced, levelled a pistol at the Queen and fired. He was so close to the carriage that the smoke of his pistol enveloped the face ofColonel Wylde, one of the equerries. The Queen was untouched and at first, it is said, hardly realised the danger she had escaped. Francis had already been seized by a policeman named Trounce, who saw his movement with the pistol too late to prevent its discharge. The prisoner was conveyed without delay to the Home Office and there examined by the Privy Council, which had been hastily summoned for the purpose. On searching him the pistol was found in his pocket, the barrel still warm; also some loose powder and a bullet. There was some doubt as to whether the pistol when fired was actually loaded with ball, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty of the criminal intent to kill. Francis was sentenced to be hanged, decapitated and quartered, the old traitor's doom, but was spared, and subsequently transported for life. The enthusiasm of the people at the Queen's escape was intense, and her drive next day was one long triumphal progress. At the Italian Opera in the evening, the audience on the Queen's appearance, greeted her with loud cheers and called for the national anthem. This was in May, 1842.
Not long afterwards, a gentleman, for some occult reason of his own, committed the atrocity of striking the young Queen in the face just as she was leaving the palace. The weapon he used was a thin cane, but the blow fell lightly, as the lady-in-waiting interposed. No explanation was offered, except that the culprit was out of his mind. This was thedefence set up by his friends, and several curious facts were adduced in proof of insanity. One on which great stress was laid, was that he was in habit of chartering a hansom to Wimbledon Common daily, where he amused himself by getting out and walking as fast as he could through the furze. But this line of defence broke down, and the jury found the prisoner guilty. When he came to Millbank he declared that he had been actuated only by a desire to bring disgrace on his family and belongings. In some way or other he had seriously disagreed with his father, and he took this curious means to obtain revenge. The wantonness of the outrage called for severe punishment, and the man was sentenced to seven years' transportation; but the special punishment of whipping was omitted, on the grounds of the prisoner's position in life. Whether the mere passing of this sentence was considered sufficient, or the Queen herself interposed, the prisoner at Millbank was treated with exceptional leniency and consideration. By order of the Secretary of State he was exempted from most of the restrictions to which other prisoners were subjected. He was not lodged in a cell, but in two rooms adjoining the infirmary, which he used as sitting and bedroom respectively. He did not wear the prison dress, and he had, practically, what food he liked. He seems to have awakened a sort of sympathy on the part of the warders who attended him; probably because he was a fine, tall fellow of handsome presence andengaging manners and because also they thought his offence was one of hot-headed rashness rather than premeditated wickedness. Eventually he went to Australia.
Frauds upon banks and large financial institutions became prevalent about 1844. In that year the Bank of England suffered at the hands of one of its clerks named Burgess who robbed it of £8,000 in conjunction with an accomplice named Elder. Burgess fraudulently transferred consols in the above amount to another party. Elder impersonated the owner and attended at the bank to complete the transfer and sell the stock. Burgess, who was purposely on leave from the bank, effected the sale, which was paid for with a cheque for nearly the whole amount on Lubbock's Bank. Burgess and Elder proceeded in company to cash this, but as they wanted all gold, the cashier gave them eight Bank of England notes for £1,000 each, saying that they could get so much specie nowhere else. Thither Elder went alone, provided with a number of canvas bags and one large carpet bag. When the latter was filled with gold it was too heavy to lift and Elder had to be assisted by two bank porters, who carried it for him to a carriage waiting near the Mansion House. Elder was soon joined by Burgess and they drove together to Ben Caunt's, the pugilist's public house in St. Martin's Lane, where the cash was transferred from the carpet bag to a portmanteau. The same evening both started forLiverpool and, embarking on board the mail steamerBritannia, escaped to the United States.
Burgess' continued absence was soon noticed at the bank. Suspicions were aroused when it was found that he had been employed in selling stock for Mr. Oxenford, owner of the stolen consols, which developed as soon as that gentleman was referred to. Mr. Oxenford having denied that he had made any transfer of stock, the matter was at once put in the hands of the police. A smart detective, Forrester, after a little inquiry, established the fact that the man who had impersonated Mr. Oxenford was a horse-dealer named Joseph Elder, an intimate acquaintance of Burgess's. Forrester next traced the fugitives to Liverpool and thence to Halifax, whither he followed them, accompanied by a confidential clerk from the bank. At Halifax, Forrester learned that the men he wanted had gone on to Boston, thence to Buffalo and Canada, and back to Boston. He found them at length residing at the latter place, one as a landed proprietor, the other as a publican. Elder, the former, was soon apprehended at his house, but he evaded the law by hanging himself with his pocket-handkerchief. The inn belonging to Burgess was surrounded, but he escaped through a back door on to the river, and rowed off in a boat to a hiding place in the woods. Next day a person betrayed him for the reward and he was soon captured. The proceeds of the robbery were lodged in a Boston bank, but fourhundred sovereigns were found on Elder, while two hundred more were found in Burgess's effects. Burgess was eventually brought back to England, tried at the Central Criminal Court and sentenced to transportation for life.
Within a month or two the bank of Messrs. Rogers and Co. in Clement's Lane was broken into. Robberies as daring in conception as they were boldly executed were common enough. One night a quantity of plate was stolen from Windsor Castle; another time Buckingham Palace was robbed. Of this class of burglaries was the ingenious yet peculiarly simple one effected at the house of Lord Fitzgerald, in Belgrave Square. The butler on the occasion of a death in the family, when the house was in some confusion, arranged with a burglar to come in, and with another carry off the plate-chest in broad daylight and as a matter of business. No one interfered or asked any questions. The thief walked into the house in Belgrave Square and openly carried off the plate-chest, deposited it in a light cart at the door and drove away. Howse, the butler, accused the other servants, but they retorted, declaring that he had been visited by the thief the day previous, whom he had shown over the plate closet. Howse and his accomplice were arrested; the former was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years, but the latter was acquitted.
In 1850 occurred the first of a series of gigantic frauds, which, following each other at shortintervals, had a strong family likeness in that all of them meant to make money easily, without capital and at railroad speed. Walter Watts was an inventor, a creator, who struck an entirely new and original line of crime. Employed as a clerk in the Globe Assurance office, he discovered and with unusual quickness of apprehension promptly turned to account an inexcusably lax system of management, which offered peculiar chances of profit to an ingenious and unscrupulous man. It was the custom in this office to make the banker's pass-book the basis of the entries in the company's ledgers. Thus, when a payment was made by the company, the amount disbursed was carried to account in the general books from its entry in the pass-book, and without reference to or comparison with the documents in which the payment was claimed. This pass-book, when not at the bank, was in the exclusive custody of Watts. The checks drawn by the directors also passed through his hands; to him, too, they came back to be verified and put by, after they had been cashed by the bank. In this way Watts had complete control over the whole of the monetary transactions of the company. He could do what he liked with the pass-book, and by its adoption, as described, as the basis of all entries, there was no independent check upon him if he chose to tamper with it. This he did to an enormous extent, continually altering, erasing, and adding figures to correspond with and cover the abstractions he made of various checks asthey were drawn. It seems incredible that this pass-book, which when produced in court was a mass of blots and erasures, should not have created suspicion of foul play either at the bank or at the company's board. Implicit confidence appears to have been placed in Watts, who was the son of an old and trusted employee, and, moreover, a young man of plausible address.
Watts led two lives. In the West End he was a man of fashion, with a town house, a house at Brighton, and a cellar full of good wine at both. He rode a priceless hack in Rotten Row, or drove down to Richmond in a mail phaeton and pair. He played high, and spent his nights at the club, or in joyous and dissolute company. When other pleasures palled he took a theatre, and posed as a munificent patron of the dramatic art. Under his auspices several "stars" appeared on the boards of the Marylebone theatre, and later he became manager of the newly rebuilt Olympic at Wych Street. No one cared to inquire too closely into the sources of his wealth. Some said he was a fortunate speculator in stocks, others that he had had extraordinary luck as a gold-digger. Had his West End and little-informed associates followed him into the city, whither he was taken every morning in a smart brougham, they would have seen him alight from it in Cornhill, and walk forward on foot to enter as a humble and unpretending employee the doors of the Globe Assurance office. His situation, exactlydescribed, was that of check clerk in the cashier's department, and his salary was £200 a year. Nevertheless, in this position, through the culpable carelessness which left him unfettered, he managed between 1844 and 1850 to embezzle and apply to his own purposes some £71,000. The detection of these frauds came while he was still prominently before the world as the lessee of the Olympic. Rumours were abroad that serious defalcations had been discovered in one of the insurance offices, but it was long before the public realised that the fraudulent clerk and the great theatrical manager were one and the same person. Watts' crime was discovered by the secretary of the Globe company, who came suddenly upon the extensive falsification of the pass-book. An inquiry was at once set on foot, and the frauds were traced to Watts. The latter, when first taxed with his offence, protested his innocence boldly, and positively denied all knowledge of the affair; and he had so cleverly destroyed all traces that it was not easy to bring home the charge. But it was proved that Watts had appropriated one check for £1,400, which he had paid to his own bankers, and on this he was committed to Newgate for trial. There were two counts in the indictment: one for stealing a check for £1,400, the second for stealing a bit of paper valued at one penny. The jury found him guilty of the latter only, with a point of law reserved. This was fully argued before three judges, who decided that the act of stealing the bit of paperinvolved a much more serious offence, and told him they should punish him for what he had really done, and not for the slight offence as it appeared on the record. The sentence of the court, one of ten years' transportation, struck the prisoner with dismay. He had been led to suppose that twelve months' imprisonment was the utmost the law could inflict, and he broke down utterly under the unexpected blow. That same evening he committed suicide in Newgate.
The details of the suicide were given at the inquest. Watts had been in ill-health from the time of his first arrest. In Giltspur Street Compter, where he was first lodged, he showed symptoms of delirium tremens, and admitted that he had been addicted to the excessive use of stimulants. His health improved, but was still indifferent when he was brought up for sentence from the Newgate infirmary. He returned from court in a state of gloomy dejection, and in the middle of the night one of the fellow-prisoners who slept in the same ward noticed that he was not in his bed. This man got up to look for him, and found him hanging from the bars of a neighbouring room. He had made use of a piece of rope cut out from the sacking of his bedstead, and had tied his feet together with a silk pocket-handkerchief. The prison officers were called, but Watts was quite cold and stiff when he was cut down.
In 1853 a second case of gigantic fraud alarmedand scandalised the financial world. It outshone even the defalcations of Watts. Nothing to equal the excitement caused by the forgeries of Robert Ferdinand Pries had ever been known in the city of London. He was a corn merchant who operated largely in grain. So enormous were his transactions, that they often affected the markets, and caused great fluctuations in prices. These had been attributed to political action; some thought that the large purchases in foreign grains, effected at losing prices, were intended by the protectionists to depress the wheat market, and secure the support of the farmers at the forthcoming election; others, that Napoleon III, but recently proclaimed Emperor of the French, wished to gain the popularity necessary to secure the support of the people. Few realised that these mysterious operations were the "convulsive attempt" of a ruined and dishonest speculator to sustain his credit. Pries, although enjoying a high reputation in the city, had long been in a bad way. His extensive business had been carried on by fraud. His method was to obtain advances twice over on the same bills of lading or corn warrants. The duplicates were forged. In this way he obtained vast sums from several firms, and one to which he was indebted upwards of £50,000 subsequently stopped payment. Pries at length was discovered through a dishonoured check for £3,000, paid over as an instalment of £18,000 owing for an advance on warrants. Inquiries were institutedwhen the check was protested, which led to the discovery of the forgeries. Pries was lodged in Newgate, tried at the Old Bailey, and transported for life.
Another set of frauds, which resembled those of Pries in principle, although not in practice, was soon afterwards discovered. These were the forgeries of Joseph Windle Cole. This clever but unscrupulous trader proposed to gain the capital he needed for business purposes by raising money on dock warrants for imported goods which had no real existence. When such goods arrived they were frequently left at a wharf, paying rent until it suited the importer to remove them. The dock warrant was issued by the wharfinger as certificate that he held the goods. The warrant thus represented money, and was often used as such, being endorsed and passed from hand to hand as other negotiable bills. Cole's plan was to have a wharf of his own, nominally occupied by a creature trading as Maltby & Co. Goods would be landed at this wharf; Maltby & Co. would issue warrants on them deliverable to the importer, and the goods were then passed to be stored in neighbouring warehouses. The owners of the latter would then issue a second set of warrants on these goods, in total ignorance of the fact that they were already pledged. Cole quickly raised money on both sets of warrants. He carried on this game for some time with great success, and so developed his business that in one yearhis transactions amounted to a couple of millions of pounds. He had several narrow escapes. Once a warrant-holder sent down a clerk to view certain goods, and the clerk found that these goods had already a "stop" upon them, that is, they were pledged. Cole escaped by throwing the blame on a careless partner, and at once removed the "stop." Again, some of the duplicate and fictitious warrants were held by a firm which suspended payment, and there was no knowing into whose hands they might fall. Cole found out where they were, and redeemed them at a heavy outlay, thus establishing business relations with the firm that held them, much to the firm's subsequent anger and regret. Last of all, the well-known bankers, Overend & Gurney, whose own affairs created much excitement some years later, wishing to verify the value of warrants they held, and sending to Maltby & Co.'s wharf, found out half the truth. These bankers, wishing for more specific information, asked Davidson & Gordon, a firm with which Cole was closely allied, whether the warrants meant goods or nothing. They could not deny that the latter was the truth, and were forthwith stigmatised by Overend & Gurney's representative as rogues. But Overend & Gurney took no steps to make the swindle public, and therefore, according to people of principle, became a party to the fraud.
The course of the swindlers was by no means smooth, but it was not till 1854 that suspicion arosethat anything was wrong. A firm which held a lot of warrants suddenly demanded the delivery of the goods they covered. The goods having no existence, Cole of course could not deliver them. About this time Davidson & Gordon, the firm above-mentioned, who had out fraudulent warrants of their own to the extent of £150,000, suspended payment and absconded. This affected Cole's credit, and ugly reports were in circulation charging him with the issue of simulated warrants. These, indeed, were out to the value of £367,800. Cole's difficulties increased more and more; warrant-holders came down upon him demanding to realise their goods. Cole now suspended payment. Maltby, who had bolted, was pursued and arrested, to end his life miserably by committing suicide in a Newgate cell. Cole too was apprehended, and in due course tried at the Central Criminal Court. He was found guilty, and sentenced to the seemingly inadequate punishment of four years' transportation. Davidson and Gordon were also sentenced to imprisonment.
A more distressing case stands next on the criminal records—the failure and subsequent sentence of the bankers Messrs. Strahan, Paul & Bates, for the fraudulent disposal of securities lodged in their hands. This firm was one of the oldest banking establishments in the kingdom, and dated back to the Commonwealth, when, under the title of Snow & Walton, it carried on business as pawnbrokers. TheStrahan of the firm which came to grief was a Snow who changed his name for a fortune of £200,000; he was a man esteemed and respected in society and the world of finance, incapable, it was thought, of a dishonest deed. Sir John Dean Paul had inherited a baronetcy from his father, together with an honoured name; he was himself a prominent member of the Low Church, of austere piety, active in all good works. Mr. Bates had been confidential managing clerk, and was taken into the firm not alone as a reward for long and faithful service, but that he might strengthen it by his long experience and known business capacity. The bank enjoyed an excellent reputation, it had a good connection, and was supposed to be perfectly sound. Moreover, the partners were sober, steady men, who paid unremitting attention to business. Yet, even as early as the death of the first Sir John Paul, the bank was insolvent, and instead of starting on a fresh life with a new name, it should then and there have closed its doors. In December, 1851, the balance sheet showed a deficiency of upwards of £70,000. The bank had been conducted on false principles; it had assumed enormous responsibilities—on one side by the ownership of the Mostyn collieries, a valueless property, and on the other by backing up an impecunious and rotten firm of contractors with vast liabilities and pledged to impossible works abroad. The engagements of the bank on these two heads, amounting to nearly half a million of money,produced immediate embarrassment and financial distress.
The bank was already insolvent, and the partners had to decide between suspending payment or continuing to hold its head above water by flagitious processes. They chose, unhappily for themselves, the latter alternative. Money they must have, and money they raised to meet their urgent necessities upon the balances and securities deposited with them by their customers. This borrowing continued, and on such a scale that their paper was soon at a discount, and the various discount houses would not advance sufficient sums to relieve the necessities of the bank. Then it was that instead of merely pledging securities, the bank sold them outright, and thus passed the Rubicon of fraud. This went on for some time, and might never have been discovered had some good stroke of luck provided the partners with money enough to retrieve the position of the bank. But that passed from bad to worse; the firm's paper went down further and further; an application to the Committee of Bankers for assistance was peremptorily refused; then came a run on the bank, and it was compelled to stop payment. Its debts amounted to three-quarters of a million, and the dividend it eventually paid was three and twopence in the pound. But worse than the bankruptcy was the confession made by the partners in the court. They admitted that they had made away with many of the securities intrusted to theirkeeping. Following this, warrants were issued for their arrest, the specific charge being the unlawful negotiation of Danish bonds and other shares belonging to the Rev. Dr. Griffiths, of Rochester, to the value of £20,000.
Bates was at once captured in Norfolk Street, Strand. Police officers went down at night to Nutfield, near Reigate, and arrested Sir John Paul, but allowed the prisoner to sleep there. Next morning they barely managed to catch the train to town, and left Sir John behind on the platform, but he subsequently surrendered himself. Mr. Strahan was arrested at a friend's house in Bryanston Square. All three were tried at the Central Criminal Court, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, passing some time in Newgateen route. Bates, the least guilty, was pardoned in 1858.
Two cases of extensive embezzlement which were discovered almost simultaneously, those of Robson and Redpath, will long be remembered both within and without the commercial world. They both reproduced many of the features of the case of Watts, already described, but in neither did the sums misappropriated reach quite the same high figure. But neither Robson nor Redpath would have been able to pursue their fraudulent designs with success had they not, like Watts, been afforded peculiar facilities by the slackness of system and the want of methodical administration in the concerns by which they were employed. Robson was of humble origin, buthe was well educated, and he had some literary ability. His tastes were mainly theatrical, and he was the author of several plays, one of which, at least, "Love and Loyalty," with Wallack in a leading part, achieved a certain success. He began life as a law-writer, earning thereby some fifteen or eighteen shillings a week; but the firm he served got him a situation as clerk in the office of the Great Northern Railway, whence he passed to a better position under the Crystal Palace Company. He now married, although his salary was only a pound a week; but he soon got on. He had a pleasant address, showed good business aptitude, and quickly acquired the approval of his superiors. Within a year he was advanced to the post of chief clerk in the transfer department, at a salary of £150 a year. His immediate chief was a Mr. Fasson, upon whose confidence he gained so rapidly, through his activity, industry, and engaging manners, that ere long the whole management of the transfer department was intrusted to him.
Some time elapsed before Robson succumbed to temptation. He was not the first man of loose morality and expensive tastes who preferred the risk of future reputation and liberty to the present discomfort of living upon narrow means. The temptation was all the greater because the chances of successful fraud lay ready to hand. Shares in the company were represented by certificates, which often enough never left the company's, or moreexactly Robson's, hands. He conceived the idea of transferring shares, bogus shares from a person who held none, to any one who would buy them in the open market. He took it for granted that the certificates representing these bogus shares, and which practically did not exist, would never be called for. This ingenious method of raising funds he adopted and carried on without detection, till the defalcations from fraudulent transfers and fraudulent issues combined amounted to £27,000. With the proceeds of these flagitious frauds Robson feasted and made merry. He kept open house at Kilburn Priory; entertained literary, artistic, and dramatic celebrities; had a smart "turn out," attended all the race-meetings, and dressed in the latest fashion. To his wife, poor soul, he made no pretence of fidelity, and she enjoyed only so much of his company as was necessarily spent in receiving guests at home, or could be spared from two rival establishments in other parts of the town. To account for his revenues he pretended to have been very lucky on the Stock Exchange, which was at one time true to a limited extent, and to have succeeded in other speculations. When his friends asked why he, a wealthy man of independent means, continued to slave on as a clerk on a pittance, he replied gaily that his regular work at the Crystal Palace office was useful as a sort of discipline, and kept him steady.
All this time his position was one of extreme insecurity. He was standing over a mine which at anymoment might explode. The blow fell suddenly, and when least expected. One morning Mr. Fasson asked casually for certain certificates, whether representing real or fictitious shares does not appear; but they were certificates connected in some way with Robson's long-practised frauds, and he could not produce them. His chief asked sternly where they were. Robson said they were at Kilburn Priory. "Let us go to Kilburn for them together," said Mr. Fasson, growing suspicious. They drove there, and Robson on arrival did the honours of his house, rang for lunch to gain time, but at Mr. Fasson's pressing demands went up-stairs to fetch the certificates. He came back to explain that he had mislaid them. Mr. Fasson, more and more ill at ease, would not accept this subterfuge, and declared they must be found. Robson again left him, but only to gather together hastily all the money and valuables on which he could lay his hands, with which he left the house. Mr. Fasson waited and waited for his subordinate to reappear, and at last discovered his flight. A reward was forthwith offered for Robson's apprehension. Meanwhile the absconding clerk had coolly driven to a favourite dining-place in the West End, where a fish curry and a brace of partridges were set before him, and he discussed the latter with appetite, but begged that they would never give him curry again, as he did not like it. After dinner he went into hiding for a day or two. Then, accompanied by a lady not Mrs. Robson, he took steamerand started for Copenhagen. But the continental police had been warned to look out for him, and two Danish inspectors got upon his track, followed him over to Sweden, and arrested him at Helsingfors. Thence he was transferred to Copenhagen and surrendered in due course to a London police officer.
Little more remains to be said about Robson. He appears to have accepted his position, and at once to have resigned himself to his fate. When brought to trial he took matters very coolly, and at first pleaded "Not Guilty," but subsequently withdrew the plea. Sergeant Ballantine, who prosecuted, paid him the compliment of describing him as "a young man of great intelligence, considerable powers of mind, and possessed of an education very much beyond the rank of life to which he originally belonged." Robson was found guilty, and sentenced to two terms of transportation, one for twenty and one for fourteen years. Newgate officers who remember Robson describe him as a fine young man, who behaved well as a prisoner, but who had all the appearance of a careless, thoughtless, happy-go-lucky fellow.
In many respects the embezzlement of which Leopold Redpath was guilty closely resembled that of Robson, but it was based upon more extended and audacious forgeries. Redpath's crime arose from his peculiar and independent position as registrar of stock of the Great Northern Railway Company. This offered him ample facilities for the creation ofartificial stock, its sale from a fictitious holder, and transfer to himself. All the signatures in the transfer were forged. Not only did he thus transfer and realise "bogus" stock, but he boughtbonâ fideamounts, increased their value by altering the figures, and in this way a larger amount was duly carried to his credit on the register, and entered upon the certificates of transfer. By these means Redpath misappropriated vast sums during a period extending over ten years. The total amount was never exactly made out, but the false stock created and issued by him was estimated at £220,000. Even when the bubble burst Redpath, who had lived at the rate of twenty thousand a year, had assets in the shape of land, house, furniture, pictures, andobjets d'artto the value of £50,000.
He began in a very small way. First a lawyer's clerk, he then got an appointment in the Peninsula and Oriental Company's office; afterwards set up as an insurance broker on his own account, but presently failed. His fault was generosity, an open-handed, unthinking charity which gave freely to the poor and needy the money which belonged to his creditors. After his bankruptcy he obtained a place as clerk in the Great Northern Railway office, from which he rose to be assistant registrar, with the special duties of transferring shares. He soon proved his ability, and by unremitting attention mastered the whole work of the office. Later on he became registrar, and in this more independent positiondeveloped to a colossal extent the frauds he had already practised as a subordinate. Now he launched out into great expenditure, took a house in Chester Terrace, and became known as a Mæcenas and patron of the arts. He had a nice taste inbric-à-brac, and was considered a good judge of pictures. Leading social and artistic personages were to be met with at his house, and his hospitality was far famed. The choicest wines, the finest fruits, peas at ten shillings a quart, five-guinea pineapples, and early asparagus were to be found on his table. But his chief extravagance, his favourite folly, was the exercise of an ostentatious benevolence. The philanthropy he had displayed in a small way when less prosperous became now a passion. His name headed every subscription list; his purse was always open. Not content with giving where assistance was solicited, he himself sought out deserving cases and personally afforded relief. When the crash came there were pensioners and other recipients of his bounty who could not believe that so good a man had really been for years a swindler and a rogue. Down at Weybridge, where he had a country place, his name was long remembered with gratitude by the poor. During the days of his prosperity he was a governor of Christ's Hospital, of the St. Ann's Society, and one of the supporters and managers of the Patriotic Fund. In his person he was neat and fastidious; he patronised the best tailors, and had a fashionablecoiffeurfrom Hanover Square daily to curl his hair.
There was something dramatic in Redpath's detection. Just after Robson's frauds had agitated the minds of all directors of companies, Mr. Denison, chairman of the Great Northern, was standing at a railway station talking to a certain well-known peer of the realm. Redpath passed and lifted his hat to his chairman; the latter acknowledged the salute. But the peer rushed forward and shook Redpath warmly by the hand. "What do you know of our clerk?" asked Mr. Denison of his lordship. "Only that he is a capital fellow, who gives the best dinners and balls in town." Redpath had industriously circulated reports that he had prospered greatly in speculation; but the chairman of the Great Northern could not realise that a clerk of the company could honestly be in the possession of unlimited wealth. It was at once decided at the board to make a thorough examination of all his books. Redpath was called in and informed of the intended investigation. He tried to stave off the evil hour by declaring that everything was perfectly right; but finding he could not escape, he said he would resign his post, and leaving the board-room, disappeared.
The inquiry soon revealed the colossal character of the frauds. Warrants were issued for Redpath's arrest, but he had flown to Paris. Thither police officers followed, only to find that he had returned to London. A further search discovered him at breakfast at a small house in the New Road. He was arrested, examined before a police magistrate,and committed to Newgate. Great excitement prevailed in the city and the West End when Redpath's defalcations were made public. The stock market was greatly affected, and society, more especially the evangelical element of it which frequented Exeter Hall, was convulsed. The Central Criminal Court, when the trial came on, was densely crowded, and many curious eyes were turned upon the somewhat remarkable man who occupied the dock. He is described by a contemporary account as a fresh-looking man of forty years of age, slightly bald, inclined to embonpoint, and thoroughly embodying the idea of English respectability. His manner was generally self-possessed, but his face was marked with "uneasy earnestness," and he looked about him with wayward, furtive glances. When the jury found a verdict of guilty he remained unmoved. He listened without emotion to the judge's well-merited censures, and received his sentence of transportation for life without much surprise. Redpath passed away into the outer darkness of a penal colony, where he lived many years. But his name lingers still in England as that of the first swindler of his time, and the prototype of a class not uncommon in our later days—that of dishonest rogues who assume piety and philanthropy as a cloak for their misdeeds.
In Newgate, Redpath was a difficult man to deal with. From the moment of his reception he gave himself great airs, as a martyr and a man heavilywronged. By and by, when escape seemed hopeless, and after sentence, he suddenly degenerated into the lowest stamp of criminal, and behaved so as to justify a belief that he had been a gaol-bird all his life.
It has been already remarked in these pages that with changed social conditions came a great change in the character of crimes. Highway robberies, for instance, had disappeared, if we except the spasmodic and severely repressed outbreak of "garrotting," which at one time spread terror throughout London. Thieves preferred now to use ingenuity rather than brute force. It was no longer possible to stop a coach or carriage, or rob the postman who carried the mail. The improved methods of locomotion had put a stop to these depredations. People travelled in company, as a rule; only when single and unprotected were they in any danger of attack, and that but rarely. There were still big prizes, however, to tempt the daring, and none appealed more to the thievish instinct than the custom of transmitting gold by rail. The precious metal was sent from place to place carefully locked up and guarded, no doubt; but were the precautions too minute, the vigilance too close to be eluded or overcome? This was the question which presented itself to the fertile brain of one Pierce, who had been concerned in various "jobs" of a dishonest character, and who for the moment was a clerk in a betting office. He laid the suggestion before Agar, a professional thief, who thought it contained elementsof success. But the collusion and active assistance of employees of the railway carriers were indispensable, and together they sounded one Burgess, a guard on the South-Eastern Railway, a line by which large quantities of bullion were sent to the Continent. Burgess detailed the whole system of transmission. The gold, packed in an iron-bound box, was securely lodged in safes locked with patent Chubbs. Each safe had three sets of double keys, all held by confidential servants of the company. One pair was with the traffic superintendent in London, another with an official in Folkestone, a third with the captain of the Folkestone and Boulogne boat. At the other side of the Channel the French railway authorities took charge.
The safes while on the line between London and Folkestone were in the guard's van. This was an important step, and they might easily be robbed some day when Burgess was the guard, provided only that they could be opened. The next step was to get impressions and fabricate false keys. A new accomplice was now needed within the company's establishment, and Pierce searched long before he found the right person. At last he decided to enlist one Tester, a clerk in the traffic department, whom he thought would prove a likely tool. The four waited patiently for their opportunity, which came when the safes were sent to Chubbs' to be repaired; and Chubbs sent them back, but only with one key, in such a way that Tester had possession of thiskey for a time. He lent it to Agar for a brief space, who promptly took an impression on wax. But the safes had a double lock; the difficulty was to get a copy of the second key. This was at length effected by Agar and Pierce. After hanging about the Folkestone office for some time, they saw at last that the key was kept in a certain cupboard. Still watching and waiting for the first chance, they seized it when the clerks left the office empty for a moment. Pierce boldly stepped in, found the cupboard unlocked; he removed the key, handed it to Agar outside, who quickly took the wax impression, handed it back to Pierce; Pierce replaced it, left the office, and the thing was done.
After this nothing remained but to wait for some occasion when the amount transmitted would be sufficient to justify the risks of robbery. It was Tester's business, who had access to the railway company's books, to watch for this. Meanwhile the others completed their preparations with the utmost care. A weight of shot was bought and stowed in carpet bags ready to replace exactly the abstracted gold. Courier bags were bought to carry the "stuff" slung over the shoulders; and last, but not least, Agar frequently travelled up and down the line to test the false keys he had manufactured with Pierce's assistance. Burgess admitted him into the guard's van, where he fitted and filed the keys till they worked easily and satisfactorily in the locks of the safe. One night Tester whispered to Agar andPierce, "All right," as they cautiously lounged about London Bridge. The thieves took first-class tickets, handed their bags full of shot to the porters, who placed them in the guard's van. Just as the train was starting Agar slipped into the van with Burgess, and Pierce got into a first-class carriage. Agar at once got to work on the first safe, opened it, took out and broke into the bullion box, removed the gold, substituted the shot from a carpet bag, re-fastened and re-sealed the bullion box, and replaced it in the safe. At Redhill, Tester met the train and relieved the thieves of a portion of the stolen gold. At the same station Pierce joined Agar in the guard's van, and there were now three to carry on the robbery. The two remaining safes were attacked and nearly entirely despoiled in the same way as the first, and the contents transferred to the courier bags. The train was now approaching Folkestone, and Agar and Pierce hid themselves in a dark part of the van. At that station the safes were given out, heavy with shot, not gold; the thieves went on to Dover, and by and by, with Ostend tickets previously procured, returned to London without mishap, and by degrees disposed of much of the stolen gold.