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 of their 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.
[Illustration: 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 stolen from 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.
JACK CANTER.
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 favoured
inmates. 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: SNAP-SHOT OF SING SING PRISONERS GOING TO WORK.]
ALLMAYER.
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
and sharply 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. Allmayer _père_ ordered 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, merely as 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 the _juge
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 prison as 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,
[Illustration: 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 for business. 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 did not 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.
PARAF.
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 through
Scotland, 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.
TAMMANY FRAUDS.
The fact has often been noticed that crime takes larger developments
to-day than heretofore. Schemes are larger, the plunder is greater, 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 the _Times_ in 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.
[Illustration: CAN THE LAW REACH HIM? ("BOSS" TWEED DEFYING THE LAW.)
(_From a Cartoon in "Harper's Weekly"_ [1872].)]
BURTON, _ALIAS_ THE COUNT VON HAVARD.
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 are _bénéficiaires_ under 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 holiday places of the
Continent, such as Biarritz, Homburg, Ostend; and this constant movement
to and fro no doubt helped him to elude the police.
[Illustration: A CELL IN SING SING PRISON.]
[Illustration: WHERE THE SING SING PRISONERS DINE.]
[Illustration: CORRIDOR IN SING SING PRISON.]
DR. VIVIAN.
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 made such 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 doubt that
Vivian, _alias_ Barnet, 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.
MOCK CLERGYMEN.
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 was staying 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.
HARRY BENSON.
One of the most daring and successful of modern swindlers was Harry
Benson, who came into especial prominence in connection with 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 sumptuous _appartement_, 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 his _signalement_ which 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
[Illustration: KURR, BENSON, FROGGATT, AND THE DETECTIVES]
attractive circular, setting forth in specious terms the extraordinary
advantages of their system of betting. This circular was distributed
broadcast through the country, accompanied by a copy of a sporting paper
specially prepared for this particular purpose. It was the only copy of
the paper that ever appeared, although it was numbered 1,713. It had
been printed on purpose in Edinburgh, and was in every respect a
complete journal, containing news up to date, advertisements, leading
articles, columns of paragraphs and notices, several of which referred
in the most complimentary language to a Mr. Hugh Montgomery--Benson's
_alias_ in this fraud--and the excellence of his system of betting
investment. It stated that this Mr. Hugh Montgomery, who had invented
the system, had already netted nearly half a million of money by
following its principles, and it was open to any to reap the same
handsome profit. They had only to remit funds to the firm at any of
their numerous offices in London, at Cleveland Road, Duke Street St.
James's, and elsewhere.
This brilliant scheme soon brought in a rich harvest. Many simple-minded
French people swallowed the bait, and none more readily than a certain
Comtesse de Goncourt, a lady of good estate, but with an unfortunate
taste for speculation. The comtesse threw herself eagerly into the
arrangement, and forwarded several substantial sums to London, which
were duly invested for her with good results; for the old trick was
followed of at first allowing her to win. Presently her transactions
grew larger, till at last they reached the sum of £10,000. Several bogus
cheques were sent her, purporting to be her winnings, but she was
desired to hold them over until a certain date, in accordance with the
English law. Yet these rapacious scoundrels were not satisfied with such
large profits. They wrote to the poor comtesse that another £1,200 was
necessary to complete certain formalities. As she was now nearly cleaned
out, she tried to raise the money in Paris through her notary, and this
led to the discovery of the whole fraud.
Meanwhile the conspirators had been living in comfort, pulling the wires
from London. Benson had made himself safe, as he thought, by extending
his system of suborning the police. Through Meiklejohn, a second
officer, Druscovitch by name, who was especially charged with the
Continental business of Scotland Yard, was approached and tempted. He
was a well-meaning man, with a good record, but in very straitened
circumstances, and he fell before the tempting offers of the insidious
Benson. All this time Benson was living in good style at Shanklin, in
the Isle of Wight. He had a charming house, named Rose Bank, a good cook
and numbers of other servants, he drove a good carriage, and constantly
entertained his friends. One of his accomplishments was music; he
composed and sang charming French _chansonettes_ with so much feeling
that they were always loudly encored. Benson soon tried to inveigle
another fly from Scotland Yard into his web. Scenting danger from the
news that Inspector Clarke was hunting up certain sham betting offices,
he invited him down to his little place at Shanklin. Benson did not
succeed with Clarke, who, when placed on his trial with the other
inspectors, was acquitted. He must have been sorely tried, for Benson
showed consummate tact, and cleverly acted upon Clarke's fears by
seeming to incriminate him. Then he offered a substantial bribe, which,
however, Clarke was honest enough to refuse.
When the storm broke Benson had early notice of the danger from his
allies in the police. Druscovitch warned them that a big swindle had
come in from Paris; it was theirs. Already the French police had begun
to act against the firm. They had requested the Scotland Yard
authorities, by telegraph, to intercept letters from Paris which, it was
believed, contained large remittances. But Benson contrived to secure
this telegram before it was delivered. Knowing that he had good friends,
he held his ground; Druscovitch, on the other hand, became more and more
uneasy, thinking that he could not shield his paymasters much longer. He
had many secret interviews with them, and pleaded desperately that he
must ere long arrest somebody, and he warned Benson to look out for
himself. It was time for the conspirators to think about their means of
retreat. So far they seem to have held the bulk of their booty in Bank
of England notes, a very tell-tale commodity which could always be
traced through the numbers. Benson solved this difficulty by deciding to
change the Bank of England notes into Scottish notes, the numbers of
which were not invariably taken on issue. Through Meiklejohn Benson got
rid of £13,000 worth, travelling down to Alloa on purpose and getting
Clydesdale Bank notes in exchange. To cover this operation, Benson had
deposited £3,000 in the Alloa Bank. He was on very friendly terms with
its manager, and was actually at dinner with him when a telegram was put
into his hands warning him to decamp, for Druscovitch was on his way
down with the warrant to arrest him. Benson bolted, but was, of course,
obliged to forfeit his deposit of £3,000.
When Druscovitch arrived his game, of course, was gone. He still
attempted to linger over the job, but the authorities were more in
earnest than he was, and England became too hot for him. The exchange of
Bank of England into Clydesdale notes was known, and so were some of the
numbers of the latter. A watch was therefore set upon the holders of
these notes, and Benson thought it wiser to escape to Holland. Soon
after his arrival at Rotterdam he and his friends were arrested. But
here, at the closing scene, while extradition was being demanded,
another confederate, Froggatt, a low-class attorney, nearly succeeded in
obtaining their release. He sent a forged telegram to the Dutch police,
purporting to come from Scotland Yard, to the effect that the men they
had got were the wrong people. The imposition was discovered just in
time, and the prisoners were handed over to a party of London police,
headed, strange to say, by Druscovitch in person. His complicity with
the swindlers was not yet suspected, and he was compelled to carry out
his orders. What passed between him and his friends is not exactly
known, but Kurr and Benson, after the manner of their class, had no idea
of suffering alone. That they should turn on their police assistants was
a matter of course, and one of their first acts in Millbank Prison,
where they were beginning their long terms of penal servitude, was to
make a clean breast of it and implicate the detectives.
When Clarke, Druscovitch, Meiklejohn, and Palmer, with Froggatt, were
put upon their trial, the facts, as already stated, were elicited, and
it was found that the swindlers had long secured the connivance and
support of all these officers, except Clarke. A letter, which was
impounded, written by Meiklejohn to Kurr as far back as 1874, shows how
eager Meiklejohn was to earn his money. It was an early notification of
the issue of a warrant, and warned his friends to keep a sharp look
out:--
"DEAR BILL,--Rather important news from the North. Tell H. S. and
the Young One to keep themselves quiet. In the event of a smell
stronger than now they must be ready to scamper out of the way."
For this important service Meiklejohn is believed to have received a
_douceur_ of £500. All these misguided men were sentenced to terms of
imprisonment, and, as I have said before, the discovery of their
faithlessness led to important changes in police constitution, and the
creation of the Criminal Investigation Department.
I can remember Benson while he was a convict at Portsmouth, where he was
employed at light labour, and might be seen hobbling on his crutches at
the tail end of the gangs as they marched in and out of prison. He bore
an exemplary prison character and was
[Illustration: TRIAL OF THE DETECTIVES AT THE OLD BAILEY.]
released on ticket-of-leave in 1887, having fully earned his remission.
He was not long in seeking new pastures, and soon used his versatile
talents and many accomplishments in fresh schemes of fraud. It was his
duty to report himself as a licence holder to the Metropolitan Police,
but this did not suit so erratic a genius, and within a few months he
was advertised for in the _Police Gazette_, a woodcut engraving of his
features being accompanied with the following description of the man
"wanted":--
"Age 39, height 5 ft. 4 in., complexion sallow, hair, whiskers,
beard, and moustache black (may have shaved), turning slightly
grey, eyes brown, small scar under right eye, frequently pretends
lameness, has a slouching gait, stoops slightly, head thrown
forward, invariably smoking cigarettes."
It will be seen from this that the use of crutches was not indispensable
to him, but was probably assumed as a means of contusing his
_signalement_. His many aliases were published with the description;
some of the more remarkable were George Marlowe, George Washington
Morton, Andrew Montgomery, Henry Younger (the name he went under at Rose
Bank Cottage, Shanklin), Montague Posno, and the Comte de Montague.
Benson's first act after release appears to have been to ascertain
whether he had inherited anything from his father, whose death had
occurred while he was in prison. Nothing had come to him, but his family
did not quite disown him, for a brother offered to find him a situation.
This Benson contemptuously refused, and took the first opportunity of
reopening his relations with Kurr, who had been released a little
earlier. Soon after this the police missed them, and they appear to have
crossed the Atlantic and started in a new line as company promoters,
mainly in connection with mines of a sham character. Benson seems to
have done well in this nefarious business before he returned to Europe,
when he made Brussels his headquarters and carried on the same business,
the exploitation of mines. He appears to have gained the attention of
the police, and the Belgian authorities communicated with those of
Scotland Yard. Benson was now identified and arrested. At his lodgings
were found a great quantity of letters containing Post Office orders and
cheques, which seem to have been sent to him for investment in his bogus
companies. Benson next did a couple of years' imprisonment in a Belgian
prison, and on his release transferred himself to Switzerland, setting
up at Geneva as an American banker with large means. He stopped at the
best hotels and betrayed all his old fondness for ostentation. Here he
received many telegrams from his confederates, who were still "working"
the United States, all of them connected with stocks and shares and the
fluctuations of the market. He was in the habit of leaving these
telegrams--which invariably dealt with high figures--about the hotel,
throwing them down carelessly in the billiard-room, smoking-room, and
other apartments, where they were read by others, and greatly enhanced
his reputation.
[Illustration: A PRISON GANG.]
At this hotel he became acquainted with a retired surgeon-general of the
Indian army, with an only daughter, to whom he made desperate love. He
lavished presents of jewellery upon her, and so won upon the father that
he consented to the marriage. The old man was no less willing to
entrust his savings to this specious scoundrel, and on Benson's advice
sold out all his property, some £7,000 invested in India stock. The
money was transmitted to Geneva and handed over to Benson in exchange
for certain worthless scrip which was to double the doctor's income.
Now, however, a telegram summoned Benson to New York, and he left
hurriedly. His _fiancée_ followed to the port at which he had said he
would embark, but missed him. Mr. Churchward--Benson's _alias_--had gone
to another place, Bremen, to take passage by the North German Lloyd. The
surgeon-general, trembling for his earnings, applied for a warrant, and
Benson was arrested as he was on the point of embarkation. He was taken
back to Geneva, but on refunding £5,000 out of the £7,000 he was
liberated. It was now discovered that his presents to his _fiancée_ were
all in sham jewellery, and that the scrip he had given in exchange for
the £7,000 was really worth only a few pounds. After this most brilliant
_coup_ Benson abandoned Europe, re-crossed the Atlantic, and resumed
operations in America, He became the hero of many fraudulent adventures,
the last of which led to his arrest. In the city of Mexico he impudently
passed himself off as Mr. Abbey, Madame Patti's agent, and sold tickets
on her behalf to the amount of 25,000 dollars. This fraud was
discovered; he was arrested and taken to New York, where he was lodged
in the Tombs. While awaiting trial he committed suicide in gaol by
throwing himself over the railings from the top storey, thus fracturing
his spine.
MAX SHINBURN.
The career of Max Shinburn can hardly be cited in proof of the old
saying that honesty is the best policy. This notorious criminal won a
fine fortune, as well as much evil fame, by his dishonest proceedings
between 1860 and 1880, and after sundry vicissitudes, ended in Belgium
as a millionaire, enjoying every luxury amidst the pleasantest
surroundings.
According to one account, Shinburn was a German Jew, who emigrated to
the United States rather hurriedly to evade police pursuit. He found his
way, it is said, to St. Louis, and soon got into trouble there as a
burglar; his intimate knowledge of the locksmith trade was useful to the
new friends he made, but did not save him from capture and
imprisonment. Another story is that he was born in Pennsylvania of
decent parents, was well educated, and in due course became a bank
clerk. His criminal tendencies were soon displayed by his defalcations;
he stole a number of greenbacks, and covered the theft by fraudulent
entries in the books. This ended his career of humdrum respectability,
and he was next heard of at Boston, where he robbed a bank by
burglariously entering the vaults, by means of his skill as a locksmith.
We have here some corroboration of the first account of his origin; if
he had begun life as a clerk he could not well have acquired skill as a
locksmith. It is strengthened by the fact that his largest and most
remunerative "affairs" were accomplished by forcing doors and opening
safes. It was said of him that he could walk into any bank, for he could
counterfeit any key; and that no safe, combination or other, could
resist his attack. The number of banks he plundered was extraordinary;
the New Windsor Bank of Maryland, a bank in Connecticut, and many more,
yielded before him; and in New England alone he amassed great sums.
[Illustration: MAX SHINBURN.]
Shinburn spent in wasteful excess all that he thus guiltily earned. He
lived most extravagantly, at the best hotels, consorting with the
showiest people; he was to be seen on all racecourses, "plunging"
wildly, and at the faro tables, where he played high. This continued for
years. He escaped all retribution until a confederate betrayed him in
connection with the wrecking of the Concord Bank, when at least 200,000
dollars was secured and divided among the gang. He was taken at
Saratoga, the fashionable watering-place, and his arrest caused much
sensation in the fast society of which he was so prominent a member.
Max Shinburn's consignment to gaol checked his baleful activity, but not
for long. His fame as a high-class gentleman criminal secured him
considerate treatment, which, on the loose system of many American
gaols, meant that his warders and he were on very familiar terms. One
evening Shinburn called an officer to his cell, and after a short
gossip at the door, invited him inside. Next moment he had seized the
warder by the throat, overpowered him, and captured his keys. Then,
making his victim fast, he walked straight out of the prison.
Once more taken and incarcerated, he once more escaped. This time, by
suborning his warders, he obtained the necessary tools for sawing
through the prison bars, and thus regained freedom. He soon resumed his
old practices, and on a much larger and more brilliant scale. One of his
chief feats was the forcing of the vaults of the Lehigh Coal and
Navigation Company, at Whitehaven, Pennsylvania, from which he
abstracted 56,000 dollars. He somehow contrived to obtain impressions of
the locks, and manufactured the keys.
The famous detective, Pinkerton, was called in, and soon guessed that
Shinburn had been at work. Some of the confederates were arrested, and
presently Shinburn was taken, but only after a desperate encounter. Now,
to ensure safe custody, the prisoner was handcuffed to one of
Pinkerton's assistants, and both were locked up in a room at the hotel.
Yet Shinburn, during the night, contrived to pick the lock of the
handcuff by means of the shank of his scarf-pin, and, shaking himself
free, slipped quietly away. He fled to Europe, and paid a first visit to
Belgium, but went back to the States to make one last grand _coup_. This
was the robbery of the Ocean Bank in New York, from which he took
£50,000 in securities, notes, and gold. With this fine booty he returned
to Belgium, bought himself a title, and--at least outwardly--lived the
life of an honest and respectable citizen. We have seen that Sheridan,
another American "crook," spent some years in Brussels, and it is
strongly suspected that he and Shinburn were concerned in the famous
mail train robbery and other great crimes in Belgium.
CHAPTER XVI.
SOME FEMALE CRIMINALS.
Criminal Women worse than Criminal Men--Bell Star--Comtesse
Sandor--Mother M----, the famous female Receiver of Stolen
Goods--The "German Princess"--Jenny Diver--The Baroness de
Menckwitz--Emily Lawrence--Louisa Miles--Mrs. Gordon-Baillie: Her
dashing Career: Becomes Mrs. Percival Frost: The Crofter's Friend:
Triumphal Visit to the Antipodes: Extensive Frauds on Tradesmen:
Sentenced to Penal Servitude--A Viennese Impostor--Big Bertha, the
"Confidence Queen."
It has been universally agreed that criminal women are the worst of all
criminals. "A woman is rarely wicked," runs the Italian adage, "but when
she is so, she is worse than a man." We must leave psychologists to
explain a fact which is well known to all who have dealings with the
criminal classes. No doubt, as a rule, women have a weaker moral sense;
they come more under the influence of feeling, and when once they stray
from the right path they wander far, and recovery is extremely
difficult. Many succumb altogether, and are merged in the general ruck
of commonplace, habitual criminals. Now and again a woman rises into the
first rank of offenders, and some female criminals may be counted
amongst the most remarkable of all depredators. One of these appeared in
Texas not many years ago, and, as a female outlaw, the head and chief
controlling spirit of a great gang, she long spread terror through that
State.
BELL STAR
was the daughter of a guerilla soldier, who had fought on the side of
the South, and she was nursed among scenes of bloodshed. When little
more than a child she learnt to handle the lasso, revolver, carbine, and
bowie knife with extraordinary skill. As she grew up
[Illustration: "SHE ... SLASHED HIM ACROSS THE FACE" (p. 449).]
she developed great strength, and became a fearless horsewoman, riding
wild, untamed brutes that no one else would mount. It is told of her
that she rode twice and won races at a country meeting, dressed once as
a man and once as a woman, having changed her attire so rapidly that the
trick was never discovered. She was barely eighteen when she was chosen
to lead the band, which she ruled with great firmness and courage,
dominating her associates by her superior intelligence, her audacity,
and her personal charm. Her exploits were of the most daring
description; she led organised attacks on populous cities, entering them
fearlessly, both before and after the event, disguised in male attire.
On one occasion she sat at the _table d'hôte_ beside the judge of the
district, and heard him boast that he knew Bell Star by sight, and
would arrest her wherever he met her. Next day, having mounted her horse
at the door of the hotel--still in man's clothes--she summoned the judge
to come out, told him who she was, slashed him across the face with her
riding-whip, and galloped away. Bell Star's band was constantly pursued
by Government troops; many pitched battles were fought between them, in
one of which this masculine heroine was slain.
Another woman of the same class was of French extraction, and known in
the Western States under the _sobriquet_ of "Zelie." She also commanded
a band of outlaws, and was ever foremost in acts of daring brigandage,
fighting, revolver in hand, always in the first rank. She was a woman of
great intellectual gifts and many accomplishments, spoke three languages
fluently, and was of very attractive appearance. She is said to have
died of hysteria in a French lunatic asylum.
Many other instances of this latter-day development of the criminal
woman may be quoted. There was at Lyons an American adventuress and
wholesale thief who, having enriched herself by robbery in the United
States, crossed to Europe and continued her depredations until arrested
in Paris. La Comtesse Sandor, as she was called, was another of this
type, who went about Europe disguised as a man, and as such gained the
affections of the daughter of a wealthy Austrian, whom she actually
married. Theodosia W., again, made a large fortune in St. Petersburg as
a receiver of stolen goods, and managed her felonious business with
remarkable astuteness.
"MOTHER M----."
Another notorious female receiver was "Mother M----," of New York, who,
with her husband, kept a haberdashery shop in that city towards the end
of the 'seventies. They were Jews, and keen traders. Their shop was a
perfectly respectable establishment on the surface. The proper
assortment of goods was on hand to supply the needs of regular
customers. "Mother M----" served in the shop herself, assisted by her
two daughters, and did so good a business that they might have honestly
acquired a competence. But she was in a hurry to grow rich and had no
conscientious scruples. She soon opened relations with thieves of all
descriptions, and was prepared to buy all kinds of stolen goods. Her
dealings were said to be enormous; they extended throughout the United
States and beyond--to Canada, Mexico, even to Europe.
As time went on she developed into the champion and banker of her
criminal customers. Under cover of her shop she ran a "bureau for the
prevention of detection," and was always ready to bribe police officers
who were corruptible, or throw them off the scent, and for due
consideration she would arrange for the defence of accused persons. It
was said that she had secured in advance the services of celebrated
criminal lawyers of New York by paying them a retaining fee of 5,000
dollars a year. When any of her clients were laid by the heels, she
acted as their banker, providing funds if required, and helping to
support their wives and families while they were in custody. She was
extremely cautious in her methods. No one was admitted to the office
behind the shop, where the real business was done, without introduction
and voucher. "Mother M----" allowed none of the "swag" to come to the
shop. The bulk of the proceeds of any robbery was first stored, and the
receiver invited to send an agent to examine and report upon it. Having
estimated its value, she then proceeded to haggle over the price, which
eventually she paid in cash, taking over the whole of the property and
accepting all the risks of its disposal. As a general rule, she secreted
it or shipped it off, and generally succeeded in escaping detection.
Once or twice, however, she came to grief. The proceeds of a great silk
robbery were found in her possession, but on arrest and trial she was
acquitted. At last, in 1884, New York became too hot to hold her, and
she crossed the frontier into Canada, and she is said to be still there,
living a quiet, respectable life. If report is to be trusted, she
regrets New York and the large circle of friends and acquaintances she
had gathered round her. In the days of her great activity she kept open
house for thieves of both sexes, gave handsome entertainments, employed
a good cook, and had a full cellar of choice wines. She enjoyed an
excellent reputation also as a liberal supporter of the Synagogue and
Jewish charities, and was generally esteemed.
THE "GERMAN PRINCESS."
Female sharpers have abounded in every age and country. The feminine
mind is so full of resource, a woman can be so inventive,
[Illustration: THE MARSHALSEA PRISON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]
so clever in disguising frauds and keeping up specious appearances, that
we come upon the female adventuress continually. As far back as the
seventeenth century there was the celebrated "German Princess," who took
in everyone right and left. Although she was nothing more than a common
thief, the daughter of a chorister in Canterbury Cathedral, and the wife
of a shoemaker, she passed herself off at Continental watering-places as
the ill-used child of a sovereign prince of the German Empire. At Spa
she became engaged to a foolish old gentleman of large estate, and
absconded with all her presents before the wedding-day. Then she
established herself at a London tavern and, as an act of great
condescension, married the landlord's brother, who suddenly found that
she was a bigamist and a cheat. Her committal to Newgate followed, but
on her release she resumed her _rôle_ as the "German Princess" and went
on the stage to play in a piece named after her, and the plot of which
was founded on the strange ill-usage of this high-born lady. After this
she resumed her robberies and led a life of vagabondage, in which she
swindled tradesmen, especially jewellers, out of much valuable property.
Fate presently overtook her and landed her at the plantations as a
convict; but even in Jamaica her effrontery gained her the friendship of
the governor, and she soon returned to England to resume her career as a
rich heiress, whereby she duped many foolish people and committed
numbers of fresh robberies. One day, however, the keeper of the
Marshalsea prison, who was on the look-out for some stolen goods, called
at the lodging which she occupied, recognised her, and carried her off
to gaol. She was soon identified as a convict who had returned from
transportation, and her adventurous career presently ended on the
gallows.
JENNY DIVER.
Mary Young, _alias_ Jenny Diver, was of the same stamp as the "German
Princess," but in a somewhat lower grade and of a later date. Her
business was chiefly pocket-picking, her adroitness in which gained her
her _sobriquet_, as one who "dived" deep into other people's pockets.
She was an Irish girl in service, who formed an acquaintance with a
thief, and accompanied him to London. The man was arrested on the way,
and Mary Young, arriving alone and helpless, soon joined a countrywoman,
Ann Murphy, and tried to earn her livelihood by her needle. Murphy told
her of a more lucrative way of life, and introduced her to a club near
St. Giles's, where thieves of both sexes assembled to practise their
business, and she was taught how to pick pockets, steal watches, and cut
off reticules. She soon displayed great dexterity. An early feat, which
gained her great renown, was that of stealing a diamond ring from the
finger of a young gentleman who helped her to alight from a coach.
Another clever trick of hers was to wear false arms and hands, while her
own were concealed beneath her cloak, to be used as occasion offered. It
was her custom to attend churches, and, when seated in a crowded pew,
make play on either side. Another clever device was to join the crowd
assembled to see a State procession. She would be attended by a footman
and by several accomplices. Seizing a favourable opportunity, between
the Park and Spring Gardens, she pretended to be taken seriously ill,
and while the crowd pressed round her with kindly help, her
confederates took advantage of the confusion to lay hands on all they
could "lift"; jewels, watches, snuffboxes of great value were thus
secured. Yet again, accompanied by her footman, she would pretend to be
taken ill at the door of a fine house and send her servant in to know if
she might be admitted until she recovered. While the occupants, who
willingly acceded to her request, were seeking medicines she snapped up
all the cash and valuables she could find. But she was at last arrested
in the very act of picking a gentleman's pocket and was transported to
Virginia, whence she returned before the completion of her sentence and
resumed her malpractices. Having made a successful tour through the
provinces, she returned to London, frequented the Royal Exchange, the
theatres, the Park, and other places of the sort, where she preyed
continually on the public and with continued immunity from arrest, till
she was caught picking a pocket on London Bridge and was again sentenced
to transportation. Again she returned, within a year, and was finally
arrested, tried a third time, and sentenced to death.
THE BARONESS DE MENCKWITZ.
The type of Jenny Diver was not uncommon then or since, and many names
might be quoted in proof of this. A very notorious female swindler came
over to England towards the end of the eighteenth century, and managed
to defraud numbers of London tradespeople of considerable sums. Her plan
of procedure was always the same: to pass herself off as a lady of
distinction, take a house in a good part of the town, furnish it on
credit, make away with the goods, and then abscond. She was arrested
again and again, and spent much time in Newgate or the Fleet Prison. One
device was to open a picture gallery where busts and portraits were on
sale, which she had obtained, the first from an Italian image boy, the
second from credulous dealers. Sometimes she got a bill discounted on
the strength of having a consignment of wax figures detained in the
Custom House. She set up an establishment as a "fancy dress-maker" in
Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, but the house was only a cloak to
debauchery and malpractices.
In carrying out these various frauds and crimes she assumed many
aliases, and was now Miss Price, next Mrs. Douglas or Lady
[Illustration: NEWGATE GAOL AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
(_From Contemporary Engravings._)]
Douglas, Mrs. Wray, Mrs. Hughes, and finally, having joined forces with
a German swindler whose acquaintance she had made in the Fleet Prison,
she took rank as the Baroness de Menckwitz. This Menckwitz was a
dismissed lieutenant from the Imperial service, who had committed many
depredations in Vienna, and was much "wanted" by the Imperial police. A
handbill circulated at the time described him as twenty-eight years of
age, about the middle height, hair inclined to be reddish and worn after
the English fashion "tied and in a bag"; in the face he was blotched,
had grey eyes, was rather thin but well made, and he usually wore the
cross of the Holy Order of St. Stanislas on his breast.
His associate, who had passed also as a Baroness de Kenentz, was
described in the same handbill as five feet in height, rather thin, but
of strong build, having quite black hair and eyebrows, somewhat brown
complexion, black eyes, and wearing her hair "quite negligent or loose
without powder." To this physical _signalement_ a contemporary account
adds: "She has the tongue of a siren, the bite of an asp, and the fangs
of a harpy.... She is devoid of every particle of gratitude, and would
sacrifice the best friend the moment her turn is served.... Her art is
so excessive that though you were warned against her, she would find out
new ways to deceive you," and more to the same effect.
Together this precious pair made a fine harvest for a time. They took a
house in Somerset Street, Portman Square, for six months, and hired a
set of servants; also a chariot, "the better to carry on their
depredations." They now pawned the plate they had obtained by fraud in
Vienna. A most elaborate scheme of fraud was practised on a London
merchant, to whom they presented themselves armed with a bill of
exchange drawn in Hamburg, and on the strength of which they obtained a
loan of £100. This they repaid, but obtained a fresh loan of £1,100,
covered by the pledge of a diamond ring. This sum was needed, they
pretended, to complete the purchase of a large stud of horses for the
Grand Duke Ferdinand, which was on the point of being shipped at
Yarmouth. They furthermore represented that the Baron was about to be
appointed Austrian Ambassador in the room of Count Starenberg, on the
eve of being recalled. On these pretences the loan was advanced, and
only partly repaid. Other frauds were perpetrated upon jewellers, who
parted with valuables, which the two Menckwitzes pledged. For this they
were arrested; but the London merchant backed their bail, entirely to
his own loss.
After this the woman deserted her companion and took the name of
Douglas, to pursue her depredations her own way, and to meet with the
requital at last that she deserved.
EMILY LAWRENCE.
Before passing on to more recent female swindlers, it may be interesting
to mention briefly one or two who were well known between 1850 and 1870.
Emily Lawrence, a dashing adventuress and adroit, daring thief, had few
equals. She is described as a most ladylike and fascinating person, who
was received with effusion when she descended from her brougham at a
shop door and entered to give her orders. Her line was jewel robbery,
which she effected on a large scale. At one time she was "wanted" for
stealing "loose" diamonds in Paris to the value of £10,000. Soon
afterwards she was arrested for other jewel robberies at Emanuel's, and
at Hunt and Roskell's, in London. Imprisonment for seven years followed,
after which she resumed her operations, now choosing for the scene of
her depredations Brighton, where she stole jewels worth £1,000 while she
engaged the shopman with her fascinating conversation. Apprehended as
she was leaving Brighton, she asserted that she was a lady of rank, but
a London detective who came down soon proved the contrary, and she again
got seven years. It was always said that this extraordinary woman
carried a number of valuable diamonds with her to Millbank penitentiary,
and succeeded in hiding them there. A tradition obtains that the jewels
were never unearthed, and that the secret of the hiding-place long
survived among the fraternity of thieves. Women, it was said, came as
prisoners almost voluntarily, in order to carry out their search for the
treasure, and a thousand devices were tried to secure a lodging in the
cell where the valuables were said to be concealed. Whether they were
found and taken safely out of Millbank we shall never know. Probably the
whole story is a fable, and it is at least certain that no jewels were
discovered when Millbank was destroyed, root and branch, a few years ago
(1895), to make way for the National Gallery of British Art.
LOUISA MILES.
Louisa Miles was another of the Emily Lawrence class, who kept her own
carriage for purposes of fraud, and called herself by several fine
names. One day she drove up to Hunt and Roskell's as Miss Constance
Browne, to select jewels for her sick friend, Lady Campbell. Giving a
good West End address, and a banker's reference, she asked that the
valuables might be sent home on approbation. When an assistant brought
them, he was told Lady Campbell was too ill to leave her room, and they
must be taken in to her. He demurred at first, then yielded, and never
saw the jewels again. After waiting nervously for half an hour the
assistant found he was locked in. When the police arrived to release him
the ladies had disappeared, and with them the jewels. The house had been
hired furnished, the carriage also was hired, as well as the footman in
livery. Pursuit was quickly organised, and Miss Constance Browne was
captured in a second-class carriage on the Great Western Railway, with a
quantity of the stolen jewels in her possession, and was sentenced to
penal servitude.
MRS. GORDON-BAILLIE.
The modern female sharper is generally more inventive than were her
predecessors, and works on more ambitious lines, although there is
little to choose between the old and the new in criminality. If the
"German Princess" had had the same scope, the same large theatre of
operations, she would probably have outdone even the famous Mrs.
Gordon-Baillie, whose extensive frauds gained her a sentence of five
years' penal servitude. This ingenious person long turned the credulity
of the British public to her own advantage, and, posing as a lady of
rank and fashion, became noted for her heartfelt philanthropy, her eager
desire to help the distressed. It was in 1886 that a certain Mrs.
Gordon-Baillie appeared before the world as the champion and friend of
the crofters of Skye; a dashing and attractive lady, in the possession
of ample funds, which she freely lavished in the interests of her
_protégés_. No one knew who she was or where she came from, but she was
accepted at her own valuation, and much appreciated, not only in the
island of Skye, when she was "on the stump," but also in the West End
of London, and by the best society. She made a sensation wherever she
went. She was a tall, light-haired, fresh-complexioned woman, much given
to gorgeous apparel, and her fine presence and engaging ways gained her
admission to many good houses. Her movements were chronicled in society
papers; she was often interviewed by the reporters, and she had a bank
balance and a cheque-book as a client of one of the oldest banks in
London.
[Illustration: MRS. GORDON-BAILLIE.]
All this time the popular Mrs. Gordon-Baillie was a swindler and a
thief, whose chequered career had commenced by a term of imprisonment in
the general prison of Perth, who indulged in several aliases, had been
twice married, and was so deeply engaged in shady transactions that she
had been very much "wanted," and had only evaded pursuit by changing her
identity. She was born of humble parents at Peterhead--her mother having
been a servant, her father a small farmer--and first became known to
criminal fame about 1872 as a pretty, engaging young person who had
swindled the tradesmen of Dundee. She was there convicted of obtaining
goods under false pretences, having hired and furnished a smart villa,
where she lived in luxurious comfort until arrested for not paying the
bills. She was at this time Miss Mary Ann Sutherland Bruce, her own
name, and she retained it after her release, when she returned to her
swindling courses, this time in Edinburgh, whence she was obliged to
bolt. Her movements were now erratic; she passed rapidly from London to
Paris, from Paris to Rome, Florence, Vienna, visiting all the principal
cities of Europe, and leaving behind her unpaid tradesmen and
disappointed landlords, but turning up smiling in new places, and soon
securing new friends. As a proof of her audacity, about this time she
made overtures to buy a London newspaper, and to start in the management
of a London theatre. She was now resident in a pretty house near
Regent's Park, with a lady companion, a brougham, and a well-mounted
establishment. Once again fate checked her career, in the shape of
warrants for fraudulent pretences, and she found it advisable to
disappear. When next she rose above the surface it was in a new aspect,
with a new name. She was now Miss Ogilvie White, sometimes Mrs. White.
During this period she was summoned at the Mansion House by a cabman,
and was described as of York Terrace, Regent's Park.
Her first appearance as Mrs. Gordon-Baillie was in 1885, when she became
intimately acquainted with an old baronet, a gentleman on the other side
of eighty, now inclining to dotage. Under his auspices she launched out
again, had a charming house in the West End, and money was plentiful for
a time. It was a costly acquaintance for him; when the supplies ran
short (and she seems to have extracted quite £18,000 from him) she
easily persuaded him to accept bills for large amounts, which were
readily discounted in the City until it was found there were "no
effects" to meet them. The aged baronet was sued on all sides, and
although his friends interposed declaring he was unable to manage his
own affairs, having signed these acceptances under undue influence, a
petition in bankruptcy was filed against him, so that the claims, which
ran to thousands of pounds, might be thoroughly investigated. Mrs.
Gordon-Baillie was much "wanted" in connection with these transactions.
But she was not to be found, and it was reported that she had gone to
Australia, although her visit to the Antipodes was really made at a
later date.
[Illustration: MRS. GORDON-BAILLIE AMONG THE CROFTERS (p. 461).]
It was about this time that she married privately--for she retained her
more aristocratic surname--a certain Richard Percival Bodeley Frost. Her
husband was fairly well born and had good connections, but he was put to
hard shifts for a living, and found his account in floating the bills
which his future wife was obtaining from the baronet above mentioned.
The manipulation of these considerable sums gave him status as a man of
substance, and he became largely engaged in company promoting, entering
into contracts and other speculations. It was proved that he was at this
time entirely without means, yet he contrived to get good backing from
bankers in Lombard Street, and one City solicitor lent him £1,000 for a
week or two on his note of hand. The money was never repaid, and when
Mr. Frost was finally exposed he appeared in the bankruptcy court with
liabilities to the tune of £130,000.
Meanwhile his wife had espoused the cause of the crofters of Skye. She
appeared there in the depths of a severe winter, but, nothing daunted,
went on stump through the island, received everywhere with enthusiasm by
the crofters, whom she harangued on every possible occasion. Her charity
was profuse, it was said, although the source of the funds she
distributed was somewhat tainted. At the end of her tour she collected
£70 towards the defence of the crofters about to be tried at Inverness,
and for this notable service she was presented with an address signed by
the member for Skye and others. Now she went out to Australia, partly on
private business, partly to seek assistance for her crofters and acquire
lands on which they might settle in the New World. Her visit was one
long triumph. She was warmly greeted whereever she appeared. Colonial
statesmen gladly fell in with her views, and when she returned to
England, it was with a grant of 70,000 acres from the Government of
Victoria.
Frost, to whom she was no doubt married, joined her in Australia, and
the couple returned to England as Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. She, however,
resumed the name of Gordon-Baillie, and as such embarked upon a new
career of swindling, which was neither profitable nor very successful.
Her system argued that she was no longer backed by capital, and that she
was reduced to rather commonplace frauds to gain a livelihood. Her usual
practice, about which there is little novelty, was to order goods from
confiding tradesmen, pay for them with a cheque above the value, and get
the change in cash. The cheques were presently dishonoured, but Mrs.
Gordon-Baillie had scored twice, having both ready money and the goods
themselves, which she promptly re-sold. Frost was concerned in these
transactions, for the counterfoils of the cheque-book were in his
handwriting. The Frosts constantly changed their address, moving from
furnished house to furnished house, adding to their precarious means by
plundering and pawning all articles on which they could safely lay their
hands.
In all this she was no doubt greatly aided by her fashionable appearance
and winning ways. Not only did shopmen bow down before her, but she
imposed upon the shrewd pressmen who interviewed her, and towards the
end of her career, when funds were low, she persuaded a firm of West End
bankers, hard-headed, experienced men of business, to give her a
cheque-book and allow her to open an account. She soon had drawn no less
than thirty-nine cheques on their bank, not one of which was honoured.
When at last fate overtook her, and the police were set on her track by
the duped and defrauded tradesmen, she brazened it out in court,
declaring that her engagements were no more than debts, and that she was
no worse than dozens of fashionable ladies who did not pay their bills.
The prompt disposal of the goods she had obtained was, however, held to
be felonious. Nor would the judge allow her plea that she always meant
to replace the furniture she had pawned. Severe punishment was her
righteous portion, and all who were associated with her suffered. As
Annie Frost she was sentenced to five years' penal servitude; her
husband, Frost, to eighteen months. Since her release, she has been
reconvicted for the same class of fraud, but she is, I believe, now
again at large.
A VIENNESE IMPOSTOR.
An ingenious fraud was not long since devised and carried out with a
certain impunity by a young woman of Vienna. She pretended to have been
struck with a sudden admiration for some one of the gilded youth of the
Austrian capital, and so far forgot maidenly reserve as to write and
confess her weakness. She chose a well-to-do but easily gullible
person--and not one, but dozens, telling them one and all the same
story. As she signed herself in full with the aristocratic name of
Kinsky, just then borne by a beautiful and wealthy member of that high
family, the individuals selected felt themselves on the high road to
fortune. The correspondence which followed was of the romantic kind, and
it ended in a consent to elope at an early date.
That was, however, impossible until sufficient funds were forthcoming to
bribe the servants of the Kinsky mansion--the concierge, the lady's
maid, the footmen, coachman, and so forth. Ample supplies were forthwith
despatched to the young lady, who thus realised a very considerable sum.
About this time the fraud became known to the police, and the false
countess was arrested under the more plebeian name of Marie Lichtner.
She seems to have enjoyed the whole joke, which was both profitable and
amusing, despite the penalty of imprisonment that overtook her. On one
occasion she gave a rendezvous to all her admirers at the opera, and on
the same night. They were to appear in correct evening dress, and each
was to wear a white camellia in his buttonhole. Marie Lichtner was
there, but so also was the true countess, in a box upon the Grand Tier,
resplendent in her beauty, and no doubt the false lady had the mingled
pleasure and pain of seeing many lovelorn looks addressed to the Kinsky
box and its handsome occupant.
BIG BERTHA.
[Illustration: BERTHA HEYMAN.]
America has produced a rival to Mrs. Gordon-Baillie in Bertha Heyman,
sometimes known as "Big Bertha," sometimes as the "Confidence Queen," a
lady of like smart appearance and engaging manners, who reaped a fine
harvest from the simpletons who were only too willing to believe in her.
One of her first exploits was to wheedle a thousand dollars out of a
palace car conductor when travelling between New York and Chicago. Soon
after that, with a confederate calling himself Dr. Cooms, she was
arrested for despoiling a commercial traveller from Montreal of several
hundred thousand dollars by the confidence game. Her schemes were
extraordinarily bold and ingenious, and they were covered by much
ostentatious display. It was her plan to lodge at the best hotels, such
as the Windsor, the Brunswick, and Hoffman House, New York, the Palmer
House in Chicago, or Parker's in Boston, to have both a lady's-maid and
a man-servant in her train, and to talk at large about her influential
friends. Yet she was constantly in trouble, and saw the inside of many
gaols and penitentiaries, but she came out ready to begin again with new
projects, often on a bolder scale. One of her last feats was in Wall
Street operations in stocks and shares. With her specious tongue she
persuaded one broker that she was enormously rich, worth at least eight
million dollars, and by this means won a great deal of money. The fraud
was only discovered when the securities she had deposited were examined
and found to be quite worthless. "Big Bertha" was gifted with insight
into human nature, and is said to have succeeded in deceiving the
shrewdest business people. Of late nothing has been heard of her.
[Illustration: END OF VOL. I.]
PRINTED BY CASSEL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Records of Indian Crime," ii. 158.
[2] "Medical Jurisprudence of India," p. 21.
[3] "Reminiscences of an Indian Police Official," p. 66.
[4] Some other very creditable exploits of this Indian detective,
Abdul Ali, in elucidating murder mysteries will be given in a later
chapter when dealing with Indian police.
[5] In the possession of Mdme. Tussaud & Son, Ltd.
[6] Abridged from the full account given in the "Tales from
_Blackwood_," Second Series.
[7] _See_ "Secrets of the Prison House," vol. i.
[8] "Criminal Law of England."
[9] Townsend's "Life of Justice Buller."
[10] These _convulsionnaires_ were a sect of the Jansenists who met
at the tomb of "Francis of Paris," where they preached, prophesying
the downfall of the Church and the French monarchy. Their ceremonies
were wild and extravagant; they contorted their bodies violently,
rolled on the ground, imitating birds, beasts, and fishes, until these
convulsions (hence their name) ended in a swoon and collapse. The law
was very severe against these fanatics, who, however, survived the
most vigorous measures.
[11] Pasquier, Mémoires, iii., p. 311.
[12] See _post_, p. 337.
[13] See _ante_, p. 236.
[14] See _ante_, pp. 226-228.
[15] George Augustus Sala, "A Journey Due North."
[16] Mr. George Kennan, in the _Century_ Magazine.
[17] "India in 1880," p. 203.
[18] See _ante_, pp. 241, 242.
[19] The opinion expressed by a Parliamentary Committee, in 1833,
on this wearing of plain clothes is worth recording. "With respect
to the occasional employment of police in plain clothes," says the
Report, "the system affords no just matter of complaint while strictly
confined to detecting breaches of the law.... At the same time,
the Committee would strongly urge the most cautious maintenance of
these limits, and solemnly deprecate any approach to the employment
of spies, in the usual acceptance of the term, as a practice most
abhorrent to the feelings of the people and most alien to the spirit
of the Constitution."
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
Brunel=> Brunell {pg v}
preqared to submit herself=> prepared to submit herself {pg 123}
province of Limgoes=> province of Limoges {pg 139}
End of Project Gutenberg's Mysteries of Police and Crime, by Arthur Griffiths