1849. _Joseph Ady_[83] is entitled to a place in this list of discoverers:
his great fault, like that of some others, lay in pushing his method too
far. He began by detecting unclaimed dividends, and disclosing them to
their right owners, exacting his fee before he made his communication. He
then generalized into trying to get fees from all of the _name_ belonging
to a dividend; and he gave mysterious hints of danger impending. For
instance, he would write to a clergyman that a legal penalty was hanging
over him; and when the alarmed divine forwarded the sum required for
disclosure, he was favored with an extract from some old statute or canon,
never repealed, forbidding a clergyman to be a member of a corporation, and
was reminded that he had insured his life in the ---- Office, which had a
royal charter. He was facetious, was Joseph: he described himself in his
circulars as "personally known to Sir Peter Laurie[84] and all other
aldermen"; which was nearly true, {43} as he had been before most of them
on charges of false pretence; but I believe he was nearly always within the
law. Sir James Duke, when Lord Mayor, having particularly displeased him by
a decision, his circulars of 1849 contain the following:
"Should you have cause to complain of any party, Sir J. Duke has contrived
a new law of evidence, viz., write to him, he will consider your letter
sufficient proof, and make the parties complained of pay without judge or
jury, and will frank you from every expense."