PRESIDIOS AT HOME AND ABROAD
The presidio or convict prison--Stations at home and in
Northern Africa--Convict labour--Cruelties inflicted on the
presidiarios employed in road making--Severity of the régime at
Valladolid--Evils of overcrowding--Ceuta--Its fortifications--Early
history--The _entierro_ or "Spanish swindle"--Several interesting
instances--Monsignor X--Armand Carron--M. Elked--Credulity of the
victims--Boldness of the swindlers--Attempt to dupe a Yorkshire
squire--Discovery of the fraud.
The Spanish "presidios" or penal establishments for offenders sentenced
to long terms are the counterpart of the English convict prisons.
They are of two classes, those at home in provincial capitals or in
fortresses and strongholds, and those abroad installed in North Africa,
as the alternative or substitute for the penal colonies beyond the
sea established by Italy and France. Home presidios are at Burgos,
Cartagena, Granada, Ocana, Santona, Valladolid and Saragossa. There are
two at Valencia, one at Tarragona and two more at Alcalá de Henares.
Of the foregoing that of Cartagena was especially constructed to meet
the needs of the arsenal and dockyard and is spoken of as deplorably
deficient by those who visited it. Four hundred convicts were
lodged miserably in one dormitory; their bedding consisted of a rough
mattress and one brown rug; clothing was issued only every two years;
the dietaries were supplied by a thievish contractor who supplied
a soup consisting of beans boiled in water, abstracting the ration
of oil and bacon. A presidio of ancient date was installed in the
arsenal of La Carraca near Cadiz, a survival really of the _galera_ or
galleys planted on shore when human motive power ceased to be used in
propelling warships.
[Illustration: _Castel dell' Ovo_
Situated on a high rocky island near the shore of Naples, it was a
place of great security. A number of the islands in the bay of Naples
have been utilised as prisons and as penal settlements.]
A terrible story is preserved of the cruelties inflicted on a number
of these _presidiarios_ employed to make the road between San Lucar de
Barrameda and Puerto Santa Maria. Their labour was leased to an inhuman
contractor who worked them literally to death. They were half-starved,
over-burthened with chains and continually flogged so that within one
year half their whole number of one thousand had disappeared; they had
died "of privation, of blows, hunger, cold, insufficient clothing and
continuous neglect." The contractor cleared a large profit, but lost it
and died in extreme poverty after having been arraigned and tried for
his life as a murderer.
The presidio of Valladolid was also condemned for the severity of
its régime. The climate alternated between great summer heat and
extreme cold in winter, but the convicts worked in the quarries in
all weathers. The death record rose in this prison to such a high
figure that a third of the average total population of three thousand
perished within eighteen months. The general average of the presidios
was low but as a rule the death rate was not high. Even when twenty
per cent. of males and twenty-five per cent. of the females were sick
and hospital accommodation was scarce and imperfect, the deaths did
not exceed two and a half per cent. per annum and this included the
fatal results of quarrels ending in duels to the death. One of the
most serious evils was overcrowding. Official figures give the prison
population as about nineteen thousand and the available house-room was
for not more than twelve thousand. Salillas puts it at a much lower
total, asserting there was barely room for three thousand.
While the prisons of Cuba are not strictly within the scope of this
work, one of historic and particular interest may be mentioned. This is
Morro Castle, which still guards the Harbour of Havana. It was begun
in 1589, soon after the unsuccessful attack on Havana by Drake, and
was finished in 1597. In 1862 it was partly destroyed by the English
who captured it and remained in possession of the city for a year. The
arms of the city, granted by royal decree, were appropriately three
castles of silver on a blue field, and a golden key. The castles were
La Fuerza, El Morro and La Punta, guarding the harbour.
The ancient fortress has been described as a "great mass of dun
coloured rock and tower and battlement and steep, of which the various
parts seem to have grown into one another." It contains cells as
damp, dark and unwholesome as those in the notorious dungeons of the
old world. This is testified to by a California journalist, Charles
Michelson, who was arrested by mistake and thrown into a cell in the
castle just before the Spanish-American War. Although he was liberated
in two days, his experience was not soon forgotten. The cell was an
arch of heavy masonry, damp with the moisture of years. The only window
was high up in the arch, and there was no furniture--no bed, blanket or
chair. He was not without company of a kind, however, for the place was
full of cockroaches and rats. When he clambered up and tried to look
out of the window, which commands a fine view of the harbour, a guard
outside poked at him with a bayonet. The soup brought him was, he said,
"strong and scummy, and the can had been so recently emptied of its
original contents that there was a film of oil over the top of it." His
interpreter, who was arrested at the same time, fared worse, for he was
bound and kept in even a fouler cell.
In the days of Spanish sovereignty, many Cuban prisoners were shot
and their bodies were hurled from the outer wall of the castle to the
sharks of the so-called "shark's nest," forty feet below, on the gulf
side.
There are said to be many caverns in the castle through which the rush
and noise of the waves make music, but this is probably due to the
winds rather than the tides.
Spain maintains several presidios beyond sea, chiefly on the North
African coast, and there is one also at Palma de Mallorca, one of
the Balearic islands. Those in Africa are Alhucemas, Melilla, Peñon
de Velez de la Gomera, Chaferinas and Ceuta, immediately opposite
Gibraltar, which is no doubt the first and original of all Spanish
presidios. The expression when first used was taken to convey the
meaning of a penal settlement, established within a fortress under
military rule and guardianship, with its personnel constantly employed
on the fortifications, constructing, repairing and making good wear
and tear, and answering, if need be, the call to arms in reinforcement
of the regular garrison. The early records of Ceuta prove this. This
stronghold, on one side rising out of the sea, with its landward
defences ever confronting a fierce hostile power, was exposed at all
times to siege and incursion. When the Moorish warriors became too
bold the Spanish general sallied forth to beat up their quarters,
destroy their batteries and drive them back into the mountains. Working
parties of _presidiarios_, armed, accompanied the troops and did
excellent service, eager, as the old chronicler puts it, to clear their
characters by their heroism, "always supposing that blood may wash out
crime."
Ceuta was a type of the military colony beyond sea, held by a strong
garrison against warlike natives who resisted the invasion and would
have driven out the intruders. The settlement was secured by continual
fortification in which the abundant penal labour was constantly
employed. Its social conditions were precisely similar to those which
obtained in the early days of Australian transportation and such
as prevail to-day in the French penal colony of New Caledonia. The
population is made up of two principal classes, bond and free. The
first are convicts serving their sentences and the second the officials
who guard them. Ordinary colonists have not settled to any large extent
in these North African possessions. A few traders and agriculturists
have come seeking such fortune as offers and the number of residents is
increased by released convicts, the counterpart of the emancipist class
in the Antipodes, who remain with the prospect of earning a livelihood
honestly, instead of lapsing into evil courses on their return to the
mother country.
Ceuta is essentially a convict city, not exactly founded by penal
labour but enlarged and improved by it and served by it in all the
needs of daily domestic life. The first period of close confinement
on arrival is comparatively brief and is spent in the prison proper
outside the city at hard labour in association on the fortifications,
in the workshops and quarries. In the second period the convicts
are permitted to enter the city and are employed under supervision
in warehouses, offices and in water carrying. In the third period,
commonly called from "gun to gun," extending daily from the morning
gun fire until the evening, the convicts are allowed to go freely into
the city and work there on their own account. The fourth and last,
entered when two thirds of the whole sentence has been completed, is
called "under conditions," that is to say, in conditional freedom, and
the convicts are let out to private employers precisely as they were
"assigned" in old Australian days. They may live with their masters,
sleep out, and are only obliged to report at the prison once a month
for muster. More than a third of the total number are thus employed.
The result is that Ceuta offers the singular spectacle that it is
nominally a prison, but the bulk of the prisoners live beyond the
walls, quite unguarded and really in the streets forming part of the
ordinary population. Convicts are to be met with at every corner, they
go in and out through the front doors of houses, no one looks at them
in surprise, no one draws aside to let them pass. The situation is
described graphically by Salillas. "Who is the coachman on the box? A
convict. Who is the man who waits at table? A convict. The cook in the
kitchen? A convict. The nursemaid in charge of the children? A convict
(male). Are their employers afraid of being robbed or murdered? Not in
the least."
Another eye witness[11] writes:--
[11] Relosillas, "Four Months in Ceuta."
"Could this happen in any other city in Spain? If the inhabitants found
themselves rubbing shoulders with the scum of the earth, with the worst
malefactors, with criminals guilty of the most heinous offences, would
they have enjoyed one moment's peace? Could they overcome the natural
repugnance felt by honest and respectable people for those whom the law
has condemned to live apart? The fact is that at Ceuta no one objects.
The existing state of things is deemed the most natural thing in the
world. It has been too long the rule and it is claimed seriously that
no evil consequences have resulted. The utmost confidence is reposed
in these ex-criminals whose nature has been seemingly quite changed
by relegation to the African presidio. They wash and get up linen
without losing more pieces than a first class washerwoman, they wait
on the children with the tenderest concern, they perform all sorts of
household service, go to market, run messages, polish the floors and
the furniture with all the zeal and industry of the best servants in
the world. The most cordial relations exist between employers and their
convict attendants and cases have been known where the former have
carried the latter back to Spain to continue their service. One was a
Chinese cook who was excused ten years' supervision to go back with his
master."
It is claimed by the champions of Ceuta that despite the freedom
accorded to the convicts their conduct is exemplary. "I can certify,"
says Relosillas[12] "that during a whole year there were but three
or four instances of crime amongst the convicts employed in domestic
service." Others however are not so laudatory. An independent witness,
Doña Concepcion Arenal, has little good to say of the prisons. "In
them justice is punished or rather crucified," she wrote, "and with
it hygiene, morality, decency, humanity, all, in a word, which every
one who is not himself hateful and contemptible, respects. It is
impossible to give any idea of the _cuartel principal_ or chief convict
barrack in the place. We can only refer to its terrible and revolting
demoralisation." Yet she is inclined to contradict herself and argues
that the convict when trusted will behave well. His life on the whole
is light and easy; he has sufficient food, congenial company, and can
better his position by steady industry; he wears no chains, performs no
rude or laborious tasks and is driven neither into insubordination nor
crime.
[12] "Four Months in Ceuta."
The statements just quoted are hardly credible and cannot be reconciled
with the reports of others, from personal experience. Mr. Cook, an
English evangelist, who has devoted himself to extensive prison
visitation, has drawn a dark picture of this ideal penal settlement as
he saw it in 1892. At that date general idleness was the rule. Hundreds
hung about with no work to do. Criminals with the worst antecedents
were included in the prison population. One had been a _bandido_ or
brigand who had been guilty of seven murders; another had four murders
to his credit and one assassin was in a totally dark cell, confined
hand and foot, condemned to death and daily expecting to be shot. No
fewer than one hundred and twelve slept in one large room without
more supervision than that exercised by their fellows discharging the
functions of warders. Mr. Cook expresses his wonder that they did not
break out oftener into rebellion. As a matter of fact and as against
the statement given above, outbreaks were not uncommon with fierce
attacks upon officers and murderous affrays among the prisoners. Crime
and misconduct are certainly not unknown in Ceuta.
A gruesome description was given by a correspondent writing to the
_London Times_ in the year 1876. When he visited the citadel prison he
found from eight hundred to one thousand convicts lodged there in a
wretched condition, clad only in tattered rags, the cast off uniforms
of soldiers, generally insufficient for decency. They tottered in and
out of the ruinous sheds supposed to shelter them, quarrelled like
hyenas over their meagre and repulsive rations, which were always short
through the dishonesty of the thieving contractor, and fought to the
death with the knives which every one carried. Each shed contained
from one to two hundred where they lay like beasts upon the ground.
Vermin crept up the wall and dirt abounded on all sides. "No words of
mine," said this outspoken eye-witness, "can paint the darkness, the
filth, the seething corruption of these dens of convicts, dens into
which no streak of sunlight, divine or human, ever finds its way, and
where nothing is seen or heard but outrage and cruelty on the one hand,
misery and starvation and obscenity on the other." There was a worse
place, the "Presidio del Campo," or field prison in which the hard
labour gangs[13] employed on the fortifications were housed in still
filthier hovels, with less food and more demoralisation. This same
correspondent when he enquired his way to the presidio was told by a
Spanish officer: "They are not presidios but the haunts of wild beasts
and nurseries of thieves." Obviously there is much discrepancy in the
various accounts published.
[13] Irons are not carried by the convicts, not even by those sentenced
to imprisonment "in chains," _con la cadena_. They were considered an
interference with the efforts and strength of the labourer.
The true state of the case may best be judged by examining and setting
forth the conditions prevailing. On the surface the convicts may seem
to abstain from serious misconduct, but even this may be doubted from
the facts in evidence. "It is a wild beasts' cage," writes one well
informed authority. It may be to some extent a cage without bars, or
in which the wild beasts are so tamed that they may be allowed to go
at large and do but little harm, but evil instincts are at times in
the ascendancy as shown in the quarrels and disorders that occur, but
to no greater extent says the apologist than in any of the prisons on
the Spanish mainland. It may be that the régime is so mild that the
convicts yield willingly to it without a murmur and seldom rise against
it. But the very atmosphere of the place is criminal. There may be few
prison offences where rules are easy but if serious offences against
discipline are but rarely committed within the limits, others against
society are constantly prepared for execution beyond. Ceuta is a hot
bed of crime, the seed is sown there, nourished and developed to bear
baleful fruit afterwards. It is a first class school for the education
of thieves, swindlers, coiners, and forgers who graduate and take
honours in the open world of evil doing. It is the original home, some
say, of the famous fraud, peculiarly Spanish, called the _entierro_,
which still flourishes and draws profit as ever, not from Spain alone,
but from far and wide in nearly all civilised countries.
The _entierro_, or the "burial" literally translated, means an artful
and specious proposal to reveal the whereabouts of a buried treasure.
It is another form of the well known "confidence trick" or, as the
French call it, the "_vol à l'americaine_," and we cannot but admire
the ingenuity and inventiveness so often displayed in its practice,
while expressing surprise at the credulity and gullibility of those
who are deluded by it. It originates as a rule in a letter addressed
from the prison to some prominent person in Spain or elsewhere, for the
astute practitioner is well provided with lists of names likely to be
useful to him in his business. It is on record that a seizure was made
in the presidio of Granada of a whole stock in trade, a great mass of
information secretly collected from all parts of the world to serve in
carrying out the fraud of the _entierro_, and with it a number of forms
of letters in various European languages. The invitation is marked
"very private and confidential" and conveys with extreme caution and
mystery the suggestion that for a sufficient consideration the secret
hiding place of a very valuable treasure will be confided to the person
addressed. Colour is given to the proposal by some plausible but not
always probable story on which it is based.
In one case the writer pretended to be a Spanish officer who had
received from the hands of Napoleon III himself, when flying to England
in September, 1870, a casket of jewels which he was charged to convey
to the Countess of Montijo, mother of the Empress Eugenie, in Madrid.
The messenger had however become involved in a Carlist or revolutionary
movement and was now in prison, but he had succeeded before arrest
in burying the jewels in a remote spot so cleverly concealed that he
alone possessed the secret. The liberal offer was made to the person
addressed of a fourth share of the total value provided he would
transmit to the prisoner correspondent through a sure hand, indicated,
the sum of three hundred pounds in cash by means of which he could
secure release and proceed to unearth the treasure.
Another story is as follows:
One day the regular mail boat brought to Ceuta an Italian ecclesiastic,
a high dignitary of the Church, of grave and venerable appearance, who
proceeded at once to make a formal call upon the commandant or general
commanding for the time being. He was in search of certain information
and he more particularly desired to be directed to an address he
sought, that of a small house in a retired spot in one of the small
little-frequented streets in the hilly town. He carried with him a
heavy and rather bulky handbag which when he started from the general's
he begged he might leave in his charge on the plea that its contents
were valuable.
After the lapse of two or three hours the Monsignor returned with
terrified aspect and evidently in the greatest distress of mind. He
entreated that a priest might be summoned to whom he might confess, and
his wish was forthwith gratified. The moment he had unbosomed himself
to his ghostly adviser, he seized his handbag and ran down to the port
just in time to catch the return mail boat to Algeciras. The priest who
had heard his confession was to be released from the secret confided
to him and reveal it to the authorities as soon as the safe arrival of
the mail boat at the mainland was signalled across to Ceuta. Then the
whole story came out.
Monsignor X was one of the most trusted and confidential chaplains of
his Holiness the Pope and he had gone to Ceuta in the interests of an
ex-Carlist general who had the misfortune to be detained there as a
political prisoner. A sum of money was needed to compass his escape
from the presidio and help him to reach in safety the burying place
of a vast treasure, to disinter it and apply it to the furtherance of
the civil war in progress. This general seems to have satisfied the
papal dignitaries of his identity and good faith; his communication
was endorsed with plans and statements pointing to the whereabouts of
the hidden treasure, and the method by which the money he needed for
his enterprise was to be used, was minutely described. He said he was
too closely watched to allow any messenger to reach him direct, but he
had friends in Ceuta, two titled ladies, near relatives who had been
permitted to live in the prison town and to visit him from time to time
and who would pass the money to him when it was brought to Ceuta.
Monsignor X landed as we have seen and learned where he was to go,
but with commendable caution he hesitated to take his money with him.
He would hand it over when he had made the personal acquaintance of
the general's aristocratic friends. They did not prove very desirable
acquaintances. He found the house he was to visit, was admitted
without question, but then the door was shut behind him and he was
murderously assailed by half a dozen convicts, knife in hand. He was
ordered to give up the money he had brought, and when on searching him
it was found missing, he was rifled of everything he carried in his
pockets, both his watch and a considerable sum in cash. His life was
spared because it was certain that his prolonged absence would lead to
a hue and cry, but he was obliged to swear that he would not attempt
to leave the house for one clear hour so that the robbers might make
good their escape. Moreover he was warned if he gave the alarm he
would certainly be assassinated. Hence his desire to pass beyond the
Straits of Gibraltar before the outrage became known. When the house
was visited it was found empty and unfurnished with not a sign of life
on the premises. The most interesting feature in the story is that the
swindlers should fly at such high game, but it is founded on undoubted
fact. The Carlist insurrection was often used to father the attempt to
defraud.
In another case a letter conveyed to the proprietor of a vineyard at
Maestrazgo the alluring news that a large sum in gold was hidden on
his ground, the accumulated contributions of Carlist supporters in
the neighbourhood. The exact position would be revealed and a plan
forwarded in exchange for a sum of four thousand dollars in hard
cash, which was to be forwarded to Ceuta according to certain precise
instructions. The money was sent but no reply came. Days and weeks
passed and at last, weary of waiting and a little unhappy, the easily
duped victim made up his mind to cross to Ceuta in person and bring his
disappointing correspondent to book. The wine grower unhappily landed
in the presidio on the day they were baiting a bull in the streets, a
game constantly played and with more danger to the passers-by than the
players. The bull goaded into a state of fury attacked the new comer
and tossed him so that he fell to the ground with both legs broken. The
poor man got no plan and no news of his dollars. All he gained was two
months in bed lying between life and death.
The writer Relosillas, who filled the place of an inspector or surveyor
of works at Ceuta, has given some of his personal experiences in that
convict prison.[14] He describes how on one occasion he was present
at a free fight among the convicts in the barracks which had been
originally a Franciscan convent. He was in his own office at a late
hour, hard by, when he heard a terrible uproar in the great dormitory
and ran over to exercise his authority and prevent bloodshed. Knives
were out and being freely used by combatants ranged on two sides, one
lot backing up a friend who had been robbed of a photograph of his
sister, the other lot defending the thief, who had stolen the portrait
for use in a buried treasure swindle. He had created her a marchioness
and intended to forward it as a bait to show his intimacy with the
aristocracy and prepare the way for the fraud. The case may be quoted
to show how minutely the practitioners in the _entierro_ studied their
ground and acquired the means of operating. In all Spanish prisons and
notably in Ceuta, cunning convicts are to be found, men of ability
and experience, who have travelled far and wide, who are conversant
with many languages and well acquainted with prominent people in other
countries and the leading facts and particulars of their lives.
[14] _Catorce Meses en Ceuta_, Malaga, 1886.
A few additional stories of swindles akin to the _entierro_ are of much
interest.
A French landowner by name Armand Carron, a resident of a small town
in the Department of Finistère, received, some time ago, a letter from
Ceuta, signed Santiago (or James) Carron. The writer explained that he
was a native of Finistère where the Frenchman resided; that he was a
namesake and a member of the landowner's family, son of a first cousin
of his who had left France many years before and settled in Spain with
wife and three sons, of whom he, Santiago Carron, now alone survived.
This Santiago, the letter went on, had been placed by his father in
the military college at Segovia, had served through all the subaltern
grades as an artillery officer, had risen to the rank of brigadier
and in that capacity had been sent out in command of the district of
the Cinco Villas in Cuba, where he had married the daughter of Don
Diego Calderon, a wealthy Havana merchant, and the owner of vast
sugar plantations. His wife had brought him a dowry of four million
reales (£40,000) and had died leaving him a daughter called after her
mother, Juanita, now about 17 years old. This girl, the only object of
her father's love and care, had been by him sent to Europe and placed
for her education at the convent of the Sacre Coeur at Chamartin near
Madrid.
His career in the army had been for many years very fortunate and his
wedded life in Cuba exceedingly happy. He had been laden with honours
by a grateful Government and received many proofs of his country's
trust, but lately the officer in charge of the chest of the military
district at Cinco Villas had absconded and run away to New York with
a sum of two million reales. As he, the brigadier, was answerable for
his subaltern's conduct and was not willing to sacrifice one half of
his wife's--now his daughter's--fortune to pay for the defaulter, he
had been summoned to Spain and then relegated, or sent as a prisoner
on parole to the fortress at Ceuta to take his trial before a court
martial, which owing to the dilatoriness of all things in Spain might
sit till doomsday.
After thus giving an account of himself and his belongings the
brigadier proceeded to explain the reasons which induced him to address
himself to his unknown French relative. Having suffered much from long
exposure to the heat of a tropical climate he felt old before his time,
and his hereditary enemy, the gout, had by several sharp twinges made
him aware of the precariousness of his tenure of life. He had only that
one daughter in the world, the sole heiress of a considerable patrimony
who might at any moment be deprived of her natural protector and for
whose final education and introduction into society it was his duty to
provide. The girl had great natural gifts, had inherited her mother's
Creole beauty, and the accounts of her proficiency, given by the nuns
at Chamartin were most flattering to his paternal pride. He was anxious
to appoint a guardian to his daughter and he could think of no one
fitter in every respect for that charge than his only relative, M.
Armand Carron.
He (the brigadier) had lately been diligently looking over his father's
papers; had found among them very numerous and interesting family
documents--ample evidence that a hearty and loving correspondence had
for many years been kept up between his father, Vincent Carron, and the
father of M. Armand Carron, also called Armand, and he followed up the
narrative with frequent allusions to several incidents occurring in the
early youth of the two cousins, with descriptions of localities, common
acquaintances and the usual joys and sorrows alternating in their
domestic circles. Altogether it was a well contrived, plausible story
verging so closely upon probability as to avoid shipwreck upon the rock
of truth.
M. Armand Carron of Finistère did not think it right or expedient to
cast doubt on the genuineness of the communication. He answered the
brigadier's appeal by calling him "My dear cousin," saying he had a
perfect recollection of his father's frequent allusions to Vincent
Carron, the cousin who had grown up with him in their own home and only
left their native town on arriving at man's estate. After heartily
congratulating the brigadier on his conspicuous career which reflected
so much lustre on their own name, and condoling with him about the
momentary cloud that had now--undeservedly he felt sure--settled upon
it, he assured his newly found relative of his sympathy and of his
readiness to look upon the brigadier's daughter as his own child,
to receive her into the bosom of his family and take that care of
her which so precious a jewel as she was described to be, must fully
deserve.
So the matter was settled. The correspondence between the two newly
found relatives continued for six or seven months and became very
affectionate and confidential. The brigadier sent the Frenchman
his photograph and that of his daughter, both taken in Havana and
bearing the name and trade mark of the artist. The one represented a
middle-aged officer of high rank in full uniform and with the Grand
Cross of San Hermengeldo on his breast, a fine manly countenance with
long grey silky moustache; the other exhibiting the arch, pretty
countenance of a brunette in her teens, with smooth bands of raven hair
on either side of her low forehead and the shade of a moonlit night in
her dark eyes; a bright blooming creature with dimples and pouting lips
and a look of humour and frolic and sense in every feature. Together
with the photographs came a letter of Juanita Carron to the brigadier,
her father, from the convent, and bearing the Chamartin postmark,
in which the girl congratulated her father on his discovery of his
Finistère relative, expressed a firm confidence that her loving father
would long be spared to her and concluded that she would for her part,
in the worst event, willingly acknowledge her relative as a second
father and acquiesce in every arrangement that might be made for her
welfare.
Seven months passed and the post one morning brought M. Armand Carron
a letter with the Ceuta postmark, but no longer in his cousin's
handwriting. The writer who signed himself Don Francisco Muñoz, parish
priest of San Pedro in Ceuta, announced the death of Brigadier Santiago
Carron, which had occurred seven days before the date of the letter. He
stated that the brigadier, brought to the last extremity by a sudden
attack of gout, had been attended, by him, Don Francisco, as priest
in his last hours, and been instructed to wind up all his earthly
affairs both in Ceuta and in Madrid. He was further empowered to remove
the Señorita Juanita, the brigadier's daughter, from the Chamartin
convent and take charge of her during her journey to Finistère where
she should be delivered into the hands of her appointed guardian. The
priest's letter enclosed the printed obituary handbill announcing the
brigadier's decease, according to Spanish custom, the last will and
testament of the deceased appointing M. Armand Carron sole executor,
guardian and trustee of his only daughter Juanita, and entrusting to
him the management of her fortune of one million francs, (£40,000),
mentioning the banks in Paris and Amsterdam in which that sum lay
in good state securities. The whole document was duly drawn up by
a notary, with witnesses' signatures, seals, etc., and even with
certificates of the brigadier's burial, the signatures and stamps of
the civil and military authorities at Ceuta and those of the governor
in command of the place.
At the close of this minute statement the priest expressed his
readiness to comply with the brigadier's instructions by travelling to
Madrid, receiving the young Juanita from the hands of the Sacre Coeur
nuns and continuing with her the journey to Finistère, immediately
upon hearing from M. Armand Carron that he was prepared to receive
his lovely ward. M. Armand Carron answered by return of post that
his house and arms were open to welcome his relative's orphan child.
Where there came after some time another letter from Don Francisco
Muñoz explaining that the brigadier, although the most methodical and
careful of men, had left some trifling debts at Ceuta and there were
the doctors' and undertakers' bills to be settled: also the travelling
expenses for himself and the young lady which he, the priest, was not
able to defray. Besides all this the papers, deeds, books and other
portable property left by the brigadier, some of it very valuable, but
also bulky--among which were the certificates of the state securities
deposited in the French and Dutch banks--which at the express desire of
the deceased would have at once to be conveyed to Finistère. He, the
priest, would have to be responsible for all this, so that, what with
the boarding money and fees due to the nuns, and the clothes, linen
and other necessaries the young lady might require to fit herself for
appearance in the world, an expense would have to be incurred of which
it was difficult to calculate the exact amount. The conclusion was that
he could not undertake the journey unless M. Armand Carron supplied him
with a round sum of money, say four thousand francs, which he could
forward in French bank notes and in a registered letter addressed not
to him but to a Doña Dolores Mazaredo, a pious woman, whom her reduced
fortunes had compelled to take service as a washerwoman of the Ceuta
state prison.
The reason alleged by the priest for receiving the money in this
roundabout way was that as the brigadier had died in debt to the
state and the government might suspect that property belonging to the
deceased had come into his, the priest's charge and be subject to the
law of embargo on the brigadier's effects, it was desirable that every
precaution should be taken to disarm suspicion and prevent injury.
The fraud was entirely successful and in due course the letter from
Finistère enclosing bank notes for four thousand francs was delivered
to the washerwoman and from her passed into the hands of the sharpers
whose deep laid plan and transcendent inventive powers were thus
crowned with full success. M. Armand Carron heard no more of his
orphaned relative.
The most astonishing feature in the "Spanish Swindle," as it is
commonly and almost universally known, is the extent to which it is
practised and in countries far remote from those in which the trick
originates. In one case a resident in the Argentine Republic received a
letter from Madrid which he communicated to the press stating that he
could not conceive how his name and address had become known. But it
was clear that the Argentine and many other directories were possessed
by the swindler, for similar letters all conveying the usual rosy
stories of hidden treasure had come into the country wholesale. The
fraudulent agent had long discovered that the credulity and cupidity on
which he trades are universal weaknesses and that he is likely to find
victims in every civilised part of the world. At another time Germany
was inundated with typewritten letters from the Spanish prisoner, and
the correspondent cleverly accounted for his use of the machine by
stating that he was employed as a convict clerk in the office of the
governor of the prison.
An attempt of the same kind was tried on a Swiss gentleman of Geneva,
but it failed signally. The swindler in Barcelona thought he had
beguiled his correspondent into purchasing certain papers at the
price of twelve thousand francs by which a treasure was to be found,
and sent a young woman to Geneva to receive the cash. But the Swiss
police, having been informed of the transaction, were on the alert,
and when she kept her appointment with the proposed dupe she was taken
into custody. An individual staying at the same hotel and said to have
been in communication with her was also arrested. The emissary denied
all complicity in the intended fraud protesting that she had been
commissioned by a stranger she met in Barcelona to convey a letter to
Geneva and bring back another in return.
The ubiquity of the swindle is proved by the adventures of a certain
M. Elked, a restaurateur of Buda-Pest, who was lured into making a
journey to Madrid, carrying with him a sum of ten thousand francs in
cash. The money was to be used in securing possession of a fortune
of three hundred thousand francs, part of which was lying in a trunk
deposited in the cloak room of a French railway station and part in
the strong room of a Berlin bank. Elked was to get the half in return
for his advance. On arrival in Madrid he met the representative of his
correspondent and was shown bogus receipts from the railway and bank.
To remove all possible doubt it was suggested that telegrams should
be sent to the railway station and to the bank and in due course what
purported to be replies were brought to Elked by a pretended telegraph
messenger. The sham telegrams finally convinced him of the genuineness
of the business and he arranged to meet the swindler in a certain café
to hand over the ten thousand francs.
All this time an eye was kept upon Elked by a brother Hungarian named
Isray, a commercial traveller, who had come to Madrid by the same train
and who on hearing the purpose of the restaurateur's visit had vainly
tried to persuade him that the affair was a fraud. Isray followed his
infatuated compatriot to the café in a very low quarter of Madrid
and arrived just in time to see three men attempting to hustle Elked
into a carriage. He had apparently hesitated to hand over the money
at the last moment and the ruffians were attempting to get him away
to a spot where he could be conveniently searched and robbed. Isray
drew his revolver and fired two or three shots at Elked's assailants,
but did not succeed in hitting any one. He contrived however to
injure the horse and the struggle ended in the three bandits running
away, leaving Elked still in possession of his money. No passers-by
offered the Hungarians any assistance during the fight, nor did any
police appear on the scene. When Elked subsequently complained to the
police authorities they simply laughed at him for displaying so much
credulity. The victims of the "Spanish Swindle" are certainly not
entitled to much sympathy. Although arrests are occasionally made, the
Spanish police have never been able to cope very successfully with the
ancient and ever flourishing fraud.
Some of the Spanish prisoner's lies are the crudest and most
transparent attempts at fraud, but a few are really very fine works of
art. An English country gentleman once received the following letter:
"DEAR SIR AND RELATIVE: Not having the honour to know you but for
the reference which my dead wife, Mary--your relative--gave me, who
in detailing the various individuals of our family warmly praised
the honest and good qualities which distinguished you, I now address
myself to you for the first time and perhaps for the last one
considering the grave state of my health, explaining my sad position
and requesting your protection for my only daughter, a child of
fourteen years old whom I keep as a pensioner in a college--"
This is the prelude to a really clever and picturesque story of the
writer's adventures in Cuba, where, after having been secretary and
treasurer to Martinez Campos, he had subsequently been driven by
General Weyler to join the insurgents, and was eventually forced to
flee the country taking with him his fortune of thirty-seven thousand
pounds. Subsequently being summoned to Spain by the illness of his
"only daughter child" he deposited the money in a London bank under the
form of "security document." After this we are introduced to the old
mechanism of this venerable swindle. The deposited note was concealed
in a secret drawer of the prisoner's portmanteau. The prisoner had
been arrested on his arrival in Spain, but a trusty friend at large
was willing to assist him in recovering the money for the benefit
of his child, if only the dear relative in England "would advance
the necessary funds for expenses." It is possible to imagine that
anyone who had never heard of these ingenious frauds might be taken
in by such a plausible narrative, but it is difficult to understand
such ignorance. A letter was received from the Castle of Montjuich
in Barcelona by a man in Dublin, who showed it to several friends in
the city explaining the process. It was new to them all, and arrests
of persons who had all but succeeded in completing this well-worn
confidence trick are constantly made in London. The boldness of these
attempts may be seen in the case of the swindlers who despatched
three letters identically the same, to three persons who were near
neighbours, residing at North Berwick near Edinburgh. The letter dated
from Madrid and said:--
"SIR, Detained here as a bankrupt, I ask if you would help me to
withdraw the sum of fr. 925,000 (£37,000) at present lodged in a
secure place in France. It would be necessary for you to visit Madrid
and obtain possession of my baggage by paying a lien on it. In one
valise concealed in a secret niche is the document which must be
produced as a warrant for the delivery of the above mentioned sum.
I propose to hand you over a third of the whole in return for your
outlay and trouble."
The rest of the letter simply contained instructions as to telegraphing
an answer to Madrid. The whole was a very stupid and clumsy attempt
to deceive, lacking all the emotional appeals, the motherless child,
the persecuted political adherent of a failing cause. Worse yet it
openly invited co-operation with a bankrupt seeking to defraud his
creditors. Nor is there any effort to explain the selection of these
three particular persons in the same small town as parties to the
fraud, and the only conclusion is that dupes had been found even under
such circumstances who were afterward reluctant to reveal their own
foolishness.
A more elaborate fraud was perpetrated soon after the fall of
Cartagena; the story ran as follows: Two of the well known
leaders of the hare-brained republican movement that led to that
catastrophe,--General Contreras and Señor Galdez,--both deputies of
the Constituent Cortes, came as fugitives to England and lodged in the
Bank of England a sum amounting to several millions of reales in state
securities, obtaining for them of course the regular certificates and
receipt from the bank. These two Spanish gentlemen afterwards lived for
some time on the continent. General Contreras took up his quarters as
a political exile in France and Señor Galdez ventured under a disguise
into Spain, where he had the misfortune to be recognised, arrested and
shut up in the Saladero. The certificates had been left in England in
trusty hands, in a trunk belonging to Señor Galdez, who from his prison
sent directions that the box should be sent by rail to Madrid addressed
to a person enjoying his full confidence. This person however had some
claim upon Señor Galdez for an old debt of six thousand francs or about
two hundred and forty pounds and insisted upon payment of this sum
before he would either part with the trunk or allow it to be opened and
the precious certificates to be taken from it.
The matter required delicate handling, for Señor Galdez was a prisoner,
General Contreras an exile, both beyond reach, and about the money
they had placed in the bank there might lie some mystery into which it
was not desirable that enquiry should be made. An easy way of getting
at the contents of the trunk could be found if any one would think it
worth while to supply two hundred and forty pounds, settle the claims
of Señor Galdez's creditor, and laying hold of the certificates,
convey them to England and withdraw the securities from the bank. A
man whose name was given and whose address was in the Calle de la
Abada or Rhinoceros Street, Madrid, would undertake to carry through
the negotiations if any one would call upon him with the needful two
hundred and forty pounds and allow him half an hour to rescue the trunk
and deliver the certificates. The worthy Yorkshire squire to whom
intimation had been conveyed of the coup there was to be made, looked
upon the story as extremely probable. He fancied it was corroborated by
a good deal of circumstantial evidence and thought he might venture on
the speculation. A professional adviser whom he consulted undertook to
do the job for him and carry the two hundred and forty pounds to the
Calle de la Abada, taking a revolver with him, as a precaution, and
intending to deliver the money in Bank of England notes, the numbers
of which should be stopped the moment he found out that any trick was
being played on his good faith.
Further enquiries were made, however, before any decided steps were
taken, and it was ascertained beyond doubt that Señor Galdez was
no longer a prisoner, that General Contreras had come back from
banishment, that the house in the Calle de la Abada was a notorious
haunt of malefactors and den of thieves, and the whole scheme was
another instance of the criminal ingenuity of the Spanish swindler.