resistance of my right arm, I took it with my left hand.
"That is a letter of mine, sir."
"It may be, madam; but I must know the contents."
"Do you allow that?" she inquired of her husband.
"I am entitled," he said, "to my wife's letters. They are surely not
your property, but mine."
"I have no dispute, sir, about the property in the letter; but its
contents, I suspect, belong to an unfortunate young woman now lying in
prison on a charge of which I take her to be as guiltless as you are."
"I don't know how you propose to make that out," said the wife.
"Nor do I, in frankness I may admit," was my rejoinder, "yet _know_; but
I think this letter will help me to the solution of the whole mystery of
the case."
Again it appeared to me that I must extricate the merchant and his wife
from momentary difficulty by some action on my part.
"I shall," I said, "keep this letter until next Monday, when, if you
insist upon it, it shall be handed over to the magistrate; but, in
strictness, I must say I think I ought to read it at once, and, if I
afterwards see fit, hand it over to the prisoner's attorney."
"I don't," said Mr. Green. "You must give it up to me."
His wife also vehemently claimed it.
"With all respect to you, sir, and to you, madam, I shall take the
responsibility of detaining it."
The husband, who all this while had been a prey to intensely painful
emotion, then desired his wife to leave us alone, saying that he would
manage me; and, after considerable hesitation, she did so. As she left
the room I thought I could distinctly trace, in the lines of that pretty
countenance, the external signs of a mind racked with the agony of
crime.
When she had left, I took a chair, and Mr. Green did the same.
"This letter, sir," I said, "may be an ordinary one, containing nothing
that can affect the unfortunate prisoner's case; and if so I shall be
perfectly prepared to hand it over to you at once; but I shall now ask,
if you please, as a matter of courtesy, to permit me to read it."
"A letter of my wife's, sir!"
"Yes, a letter of your wife's; and I can promise you no secrecy about
its contents until I know what they are. If these contents be not
essential to the interests of the prisoner, and do not call for its use,
whatever be the secret this letter embodies, no living soul will get the
least idea of that secret from me. If, on the other hand, it will
furnish a material link in the evidence of that unfortunate girl's
innocence, no considerations, no regard to the position, circumstances,
or happiness of you, will induce me to abstain from using it in a way to
secure her liberation."
"I think you should let me read it first," said the husband, in terror.
"You must allow me to reverse the order of perusal. _I_ must read it
first."
Mr. Green rose and paced the room. I sat musing, and observing him. At
last he turned, and said,
"I know I can rely upon your judgment sir." He sat down beside me. I
read the letter in tones loud enough for him to hear, but let no
sentence or word of it pass through the keyhole of that drawing-room
door.
We drew our chairs closer together as I read the letter. It was
addressed to the merchant's wife, in the handwriting of the party with
whom the prior attachment of her heart had been contracted,--from whom
it had never been severed. She had in vain sought to wean her
affections from him as soon as she received the proposal from her
present husband; but it was useless. Cold, cynical, calculating, as she
had been rendered by stern experience, there was yet in her breast
sufficient of that element of human love to bind the attachment of her
purer days. She did not muster courage for a long while to apprise the
lover of her intended marriage. When she did so, he received it with
what he called "philosophical resignation." He professed to resign her,
and no doubt did resign her, to what he said and conceived would be "a
more satisfactory marriage." It was, however, agreed between the lovers
that their acquaintance should continue on the basis of friendship; but
neither of them being led by high and lofty sentiment, being indeed both
of a somewhat inferior nature, they were incapable of maintaining that
cold relationship which even better minds might have found it no easy
task to preserve in its frigid integrity. The attachment of friendship
ripened into criminal love before the merchant took the lady to the
altar. That criminal relationship continued after marriage. Misfortune
fell upon the lover nearly as soon as good fortune was realised by the
woman intended for his wife, who had become the wife of another. He
applied to her to assist him with her purse. She did this with all she
could obtain from her husband--saved from domestic outlay. The demands
upon the wife from this source, however, increased with her freedom or
desire to satisfy them. Money, easily and ill-gotten by the paramour
from his mistress, was lightly spent. What had been asked for in the
first instance in tones of humble supplication, was ere long demanded
under threats of exposure.
The letter taken from the piano demanded the sum of 10_l._, in order
that the writer might satisfy what he was pleased to call "a debt of
honour" within three days. He must, he said, have the money, and he
would have it. The wretch had the brutal audacity to say to this
unfortunate woman in his power, "You have more to suffer by exposure
than I have; and look out, if you don't let me have the money." This
amount the wretched woman could not procure. She had about a week
previously supplied him with a like sum, and his demands upon her had of
late been so heavy that she had been in daily apprehension her husband
would discover the malversation of the funds he had supplied her with to
keep his house. Bills which she professed to have paid remained
unsatisfied. Several hundreds of pounds had been diverted from their
legitimate application. She had, therefore, on this occasion, as she had
done on some other occasions when similarly situated, given him the
material by which, through the pawnbroker, or in some such mode, he
might raise the money he required for his unhallowed purposes; and be
once more extracted, through his criminal hold over the mind,
conscience, and body of the wife, the cash to expend in debauchery. The
watch and chain, and some other trinkets, had been given by the wife to
her paramour, and by him disposed of.
The effect which this letter produced upon the merchant may be more
easily conceived than described. It is enough to say that this
tolerably strong-minded man, who had so well played his part throughout
the interview I have at such length described, here broke down,
completely unnerved. He put himself under my guidance, and quitted the
house with me that evening, leaving Mrs. Green therein--alone.
Mr. Green and I had a meeting on the following day at the office of his
solicitor, to whom I handed a copy of the letter; and I also supplied a
copy to the attorney for the prisoner. It was arranged between Mr.
Green's solicitor and his client that a person should be sent up to take
immediate possession of the house at Kentish Town, which he had
evacuated on the previous night.
The man, on his arrival there, discovered that Mrs. Green had fled. She
took her departure early that morning. She left no article behind that
was easy of removal. A somewhat extensive wardrobe was packed in boxes.
All the articles of jewelry, that were easily convertible into money,
she also took. Mr. Green had, at my suggestion, left her ten cheques,
drawn upon his private bankers, for 5_l._ each, and each post-dated
seven days apart. These, of course, she took with her. She left no
address behind her. She took neither of the servants for companionship.
Whither she had gone to nobody knew, nor did I care.
There was a meeting between the solicitor for the prosecutor and the
solicitor for the prisoner--in confidence, and without prejudice.
Communications were, under this shield, freely exchanged. The poor girl
was told that an application would be made for her release, when next
taken before the magistrate, under circumstances that would be
afterwards explained to her. She was further informed that her master
was confident of her innocence; that the guilty person had been traced,
but would not be prosecuted. For the injury she had received at his
hands, which he was sorry to confess was the consequence of his rash
impulses, he asked her forgiveness, which she readily granted him.
At the next examination before the magistrate the prosecutor's
solicitor, who appeared for the first time, said that the case had been
investigated since the former meeting, and that he would ask his
worship's permission to be allowed to withdraw from the prosecution. The
magistrate at once turned to the prisoner's solicitor, asked whether he
had any objection to that course, and received for reply that his client
had no objection to her release without conditions.
The poor girl was accordingly liberated, and taken away under the care
of a relative, in whose hands means were placed for her immediate
comfortable provision. Mr. Green provided those means.
Of Mrs. Green I have since heard. Indeed I had another engagement to
trace her, the clue to which was furnished by herself. She employed an
attorney about two months after her flight from Kentish Town, who waited
upon the private solicitor of her husband, and implored him, on the
ground of humanity, to let her have money. The advocate begged him to
think of the discredit that would attach to Mr. Green if the woman who
bore his name were reduced to distress, absolute privation, and perhaps
the workhouse. After several consultations with his solicitor, Mr. Green
declined to allow any thing. He professed a total unconcern as to what
became of the worthless woman; and in reply to a menace, then delicately
put forward or hinted by her legal adviser, that she would be a source
of annoyance to her husband, Mr. Green's solicitor informed his
professional friend that his client would not scruple to hand her over
to the police if she did so. So ended the negotiation.
Some time had rolled away since the liberation of the prisoner. Mr.
Green continued to take considerable interest in her welfare. He
frequently visited the residence of her aunt, at Camberwell, and
betrayed an almost tender solicitude about the girl. In fact tender is
the right part of speech to use as the qualification of solicitude in
this case.
The merchant called upon his solicitor one day, and had a long
conference with him. Without taking the reader through from the
beginning to the end of that private conference, I may inform him that
Mr. Green was determined that Sir Cresswell Cresswell should rend
asunder the bonds which had been forged by Hymen or the
Church-of-England minister, if legal evidence of the infidelity of his
wife could be produced, and he imagined there would be very little
trouble in getting it. The letter which had been discovered in the piano
would of course be very important, but was not sufficient in itself.
I was accordingly employed, and following up such traces as I
apprehended would lead me on her track. I was not a great while before
I discovered that Mrs. Green had become "one more unfortunate" parading
Waterloo Place every night, at present decked in the garments which Mr.
Green, her husband, had purchased; and I further learnt that, out of the
proceeds of her sin, she was maintaining "the prior attachment."
When all this evidence had been collected and laid before Dr. Jinks, a
very accomplished lawyer, as I have seen cause to know, who practises in
the court till recently presided over so ably by Sir Cresswell
Cresswell; and when his opinion had been written upon "a case," to the
effect that there was no doubt the court would grant Mr. Green a divorce
from his adulterous wife,--that gentleman called upon Eliza's aunt, and
explained to her that he felt bound to mark at once his sense of the
merit and virtues of her niece, and his desire to make the amplest
reparation in his power for the injuries inflicted upon her, by offering
to place her in the position of her late mistress as soon as the legal
ceremonies clearing the way had been effected.
The court readily granted a divorce. The opposition on the wife's part
was but a sham resistance. It was an attorney's defence, that would
never have been made if the law, in its kindly regard for woman under
all circumstances, had not allowed her, although demoralised, to dip her
hands in an injured husband's pocket for the costs of any pretended
resistance to his prayer, as well as for alimony during the litigation.
As soon as Mr. Green issued his citation, he had to allow his wife at
the rate of 600_l._ per annum until he got his decree for a dissolution
of the marriage, and he had also to pay her attorney 150_l._ 4_s._ 6_d._
These moneys being paid, and these processes having been gone through,
and after further waiting the time prescribed by law for the other
side--that is, for Mrs. Green--to appeal against the court's decision,
no such appeal having been attempted, the adulterous woman was no longer
entitled to the use of the merchant's name; she ceased to be, in the eye
of the law, in any respect his wife; and Eliza became Mrs. Green, under
the sanction of law and of the Established Church of England.
THE VIRTUE OF AN AMERICAN PASSPORT.
I was once employed to track an absconding bankrupt and hand him over to
the tender mercies of a criminal court. There was nothing in the case,
as it appeared on my instructions, to distinguish it from a host of
other cases. It had not even the merit of difficulty to lend it
interest. I made sure of catching my man with little trouble, as I did,
and as I will point out. The affair, however, took a rather curious turn
in the sequel, as the reader will perceive.
The bankrupt had been a trader in Liverpool. He had not been in business
there more than ten months, but had contrived, during that short period,
to contract debts to the extent of 84,000_l._ I don't know in what line
he traded. I believe in many, or in all lines. He professed to be a
believer in homely saws, and the philosophy they embody. He would not
object at any time, he said, to turn an honest pound in any way. He
therefore bought all that came within the range of his credit, from rags
and hempen fragments to jewelry, and from tallow to diamonds. I don't
know where he traded to especially. I believe that he sold more in the
home-market than abroad, although he talked largely about consignments,
bills of lading, &c. If he had a skill for getting credit, he had a
genius for disposing of goods. He was also an expert at what is called
hypothecating,--a process which, for the unenlightened, I may explain to
be as like pawning as any one thing can be like another. A peculiarity
of his business was, that he always bought on acceptances, and for
credit; he always sold for cash on delivery. Hence he frequently, if not
always, traded at a loss. He was sometimes so unlucky as not to be able
to get half as much in cash for things as they had cost him in bills.
Such trading as this, the reader may think, would soon come to an end.
It is quite clear that such trading must end in bankruptcy and ruin to
some one, or to more than one. It is not, however, so sure that this
mode of carrying on business would overtake ruin speedily. Our American
bankrupt lasted ten months; and it is the opinion of many well informed
persons that he might have gone on for three or four years if he had
calculated well, and held his ground boldly. How was that to be done?
Easily. There is a process which I have heard scientifically described
as "widening the ratio." That would have done it.
Suppose that a man in trade loses 500_l._ upon the business of 1000_l._,
which is about the proportion in our Yankee's business or its results.
Suppose that he wants to spend, and therefore does spend, the 500_l._ on
himself. Is he bound to stop payment at the end of that partial
experiment, and treat the problem as one therein solved? No. He may
double his business and losses, and still keep right, in a familiar
sense of that nice phrase. If he should trade to the extent of
2000_l._, and lose 1000_l._ upon it, he will be able to pay off the
first credits out of the net proceeds of his second series of
operations; and all the people who get their money--noticing, also, the
activity of his business--will sound his praises as "a rising merchant,"
"an upright man," "a punctual tradesman." To live during the second
series of operations out of them, they should, however, be extended to
3000_l._ or 4000_l._, instead of 2000_l._; and nothing is much easier
than to do this. Keep on paying each bill as it falls due (no matter at
what sacrifice,--by the forced sale of goods, or by discounts at any
rate of interest), and there will be no difficulty about "widening your
ratio of trade," until you are entitled to a place in that category of
worthies which Mr. David Morier Evans has culled and put together in his
work entitled, _Facts, Frauds, and Fallacies_. Some day the bubble will
burst, I know; but the ball may be kept rolling for a series of years on
this plan.
It is just possible that a hitch may stop the machinery. There are
accidents against which no human foresight can guard; and if the bright
pleasant road to ruin gets blocked up, you may in the side paths
encounter a policeman, who will lead you to a judge, and a prison, or a
hulk. That I take to be one of the inevitable contingencies which any
swindler will look fairly in the face--avoid it, if he can; and if not,
then meet it with calmness and resignation.
The Yankee did not, however, as I am told, understand this practical
method of commercial swindling, and he would have inevitably come to
grief if he had been an Englishman. The reader may as well bear that
little fact in mind. A great man once observed that, although many
persons resolved to live by their wits, the vast majority of those who
tried the experiment got half starved by a scarcity of the material for
that sort of existence.
The penal clauses of the New Bankruptcy Act are also to be kept in view
as things to avoid, for I see by the Old-Bailey intelligence they are
being enforced with terrible severity. If caught and discovered
offending against any of the primary canons of mercantile jurisprudence,
the weight of punishment is heavy. The reader must also not forget that,
although he gives the criminal law and its officers no hold over him, he
may encounter cantankerous or savage creditors, who, not satisfied with
the loss they may have already incurred through him, will throw away
more good money, not after bad cash, but in order to punish what they
conceive a bad man. They may hunt him down to disgrace and beggary, hold
him up to scorn and ignominy--in violation of the pure Christian theory
which bids us "live and let live"--never ceasing until he has no certain
and regular mode of existence left except begging-letter writing,
holding horses at the West End of the metropolis, hawking ballads,
vending penny newspapers, retailing vegetables or fruit or stationery,
or a life of idleness in a union workhouse.
But I am moralising, preaching, or sermonising, instead of telling my
story.
Well. Mr. Abraham Driver had run his career in ten months. During this
time it was believed that he had, however, to use a vulgar term, "made a
purse," or "feathered his nest." He had realised considerable sums by
hypothecating and selling goods, getting advances on bills of lading,
&c. Where the money had gone to, his creditors were anxious to know.
They believed he could pay 20_s._ in the pound. As a matter of fact, he
didn't pay 1_s._ in the pound.
Abraham Driver, merchant, dealer, and chapman, as he was described in
legal processes, was adjudicated a bankrupt. He didn't surrender.
Perhaps, if his creditors had had an adequate idea of the dignity of
American citizenship, or the sanctity of the stars and stripes, or the
potency of the meanest recognised Yankee diplomat, they would never have
offered such an affront as they did through Mr. Driver to his bumptious
nation.
The Yankee merchant and citizen, as I have said, didn't surrender to his
adjudication in obedience to a printed and written summons, which he
received. He treated that "big broad slip of paper" with gross verbal
contempt. Yet he thought it inexpedient to stay in Liverpool. That fine
town was too hot for him. He therefore shifted his quarters to London
before the day limited for his appearance in the Liverpool District
Court of Bankruptcy. When in London, he said he thought he might as well
enjoy himself; and this notion carried him further from the late scene
of his enterprise than the British metropolis. He turned his back
disdainfully upon the land over which Queen Victoria's metaphorical
sceptre sways. He went by rail and steamboat to the continent of
Europe.
Almost as soon as Mr. Driver left the shores of the Mersey, I was
desired to bestow upon him my attentions. I supplied him with an unseen
guard of dishonour. His movements were watched until he landed at the
port of ----. Here, as no instructions to arrest him on the Continent
were given me, he was left.
The principal creditors of the bankrupt determined to follow him. He was
now an outlaw. The time for his surrender had expired. A warrant that
would run into France could be obtained for his arrest and for his
removal to this country. The requisite processes--or those which able
lawyers thought sufficient--were obtained, and placed in my hands.
I went over myself, and one of the Liverpool gentlemen was my agreeable
companion.
In obedience to the wishes of my employer and associate, I consented to
go with him to the office of the British consul.
The British consul was a high and mighty man in his own esteem, and he
snuffed me out in the grandest style. I could not help admiring the art
with which this servant of the British Crown reduced me, from the height
of my legitimate self-respect, to the nothingness he thought my true
status.
"They manage things differently in France to what they do in England,
sir, I can tell you. Now, leave the matter all to me, sir, till the
fellow's captured, and you have him again in England."
I and my friend retired to the passage of the consul's office (which was
one small room) to confer on the subject. The consul also had a
conference in his office with his man of all work, whose name I
afterwards ascertained to be Boggy. At this conference I agreed to allow
the consul to take his own course of action in France, and I was to
merely assist when asked to render aid.
"Well, my man Boggy shall go and see whether the fellow is at this
moment in the port. Boggy will soon ascertain that."
Boggy's palm was crossed with a golden coin, which bore an effigy of
England's Queen, to stimulate his zeal in the execution of her laws.
The Frenchman was not long in discovering Mr. Abraham Driver's
whereabouts. He came back to announce that the man we wanted was
unsuspectingly smoking a meerschaum at the Anglo-American Hotel.
Now to seize the villain. I was ready, and the defrauded creditor was
intensely anxious for the fellow's capture.
"Nay, nay," said the consul. "We must go to the commissary of police. I
must pay his fees. It will not take long to get through the ceremonies,
but it will cost money to arrest the scoundrel. Nothing is done in this
country, sir, without money."
"What will be the amount of the fees, do you suppose?" asked my client.
"I can't say exactly. About 16_l._ or 17_l._ You had better let me have
20_l._, and I can return you the balance."
Boggy here threw his mercurial eyes at the consul, and then at me, and
then at my client. This had the desired effect.
"Never mind about the change. I don't object to give 20_l._ (handing
over the money) for the villain's capture. You can let this good man
have the balance," said the gentleman from Liverpool.
Boggy, with glistening eye, and with triumphant mien, led the way. I
followed with my companion.
We passed into and out of several mysterious offices. Our warrant and
other papers were scrutinised with tedious minuteness. Boggy seemed at
home, and at ease with the minor officials, and to have a becoming
veneration for the big-wigs.