CHAPTER VIII.

NEWGATE NOTORIETIES (_continued_).

Increase in crimes of fraud--Edward Beaumont Smith--Casting away

ships--The 'Dryad'--Wrecked by the Wallaces--Another

clergyman-forger, Dr. Bailey--The Barber Fletcher frauds to obtain

unclaimed stock in the funds--The Bank of England robbed by one of

its clerks of £8000--Other daring robberies--Burglaries at Windsor

Castle and Buckingham Palace--Ingenious plate robbery at Lord

Fitzgerald's in Belgrave Square--Stealing plate from clubs by a

member--A large parcel of rough diamonds stolen--More murders--The

valet Courvoisier murders his master, Lord William Russell--His

trial and sentence--His confession, attempted suicide, and

demeanour at the scaffold--Daniel Good murders his wife--Strange

discovery of the crime--Pursuit and arrest of the murderer--Hocker

kills Mr. Delarue--Murderer cannot tear himself from the scene of

his crime--Epidemic of murder in 1848-9--Rush--Gleeson Wilson--The

Mannings and their victim, O'Connor--The cold-blooded scheme--How

carried out, and how discovered--One of the first instances of the

employment of the electric telegraph to arrest the murderers--Their

trial--Violent conduct of Mrs. Manning--The execution at

Horsemonger Lane Gaol--Charles Dickens on this execution--Other

murderers--Robert Marley--Cannon, the chimney-sweep, who makes a

murderous assault upon and nearly killed a policeman--Mobbs, the

brutal husband--Barthelemy--Series of gigantic frauds, commencing

in 1850--Walter Watts, the inventor of the new crime--The two lives

he led--Immense defalcations--Sentenced for stealing a bit of paper

value one penny--Commits suicide--The forgeries of R. F.

Pries--Those of Joseph Windle Cole--Raises funds on fictitious

dock warrants--The bankers Messrs. Strahan, Paul, and Bates tried

for disposing of securities they held on deposit--Systematic

embezzlement by Robson, a clerk in the Crystal Palace

Company--Lionel Redpath carries on still more audacious frauds--His

way of life--A patron of art, and foremost in all good works--His

detection and flight--Is captured, tried, and sentenced to

transportation--Big prizes still to be had by daring thieves--The

bullion robbery on the South-Eastern--How planned and carried

out--Detected by accident--The bold and systematic forgeries of

Saward, or Jem the Penman--His method--How caught--Sentenced to

transportation.

As the century advanced crimes of fraud increased. They not only became

more numerous, but they were on a wider scale. The most extensive and

systematic robberies were planned and carried out so as long to escape

detection. One of the earliest of the big operators in fraudulent

finance was Edward Beaumont Smith, who was convicted in 1841 of uttering

false exchequer bills to an almost fabulous amount. A not entirely novel

kind of fraud, but one carried out on a larger scale than heretofore,

came to light in this same year, 1841. This was the wilful shipwreck and

casting away of a vessel which, with her supposed cargo, had been

heavily insured. The 'Dryad' was a brig owned principally by two persons

named Wallace, one a seaman, the other merchant. She was freighted by

the firm of Zulueta and Co. for a voyage to Santa Cruz. Her owners

insured her for a full sum of £2000, after which the Wallaces insured

her privily with other underwriters for a second sum of £2000. After

this, on the faith of forced bills of lading, the captain, Loose by

name, being a party to the intended fraud, they obtained further

insurances on goods never shipped. It was fully proved in evidence that

when the 'Dryad' sailed she carried nothing but the cargo belonging to

Zulueta and Co. Yet the Wallaces pretended to have put on board

quantities of flannels, cloths, cotton prints, beef, pork, butter, and

earthenwares, on all of which they effected insurances. Loose had his

instructions to cast away the ship on the first possible opportunity,

and from the time of his leaving Liverpool he acted in a manner which

excited the suspicions of the crew. The larboard pump was suffered to

remain choked up, and the long-boat was fitted with tackles and held

ready for use at a moment's notice. The ship, however, met with

exasperatingly fine weather, and it was not until the captain reached

the West India Islands that he got a chance of accomplishing his crime.

At a place called the Silver Keys he ran the ship on the reef. But

another ship, concluding that he was acting in ignorance, rendered him

assistance. The 'Dryad' was got off, repaired, and her voyage renewed to

Santa Cruz. He crept along the coast close in shore, looking for a quiet

spot to cast away the ship, and at last, when within fifteen miles of

port, with wind and weather perfectly fair, he ran her on to the rocks.

Even then she might have been saved, but the captain would not suffer

the crew to act. Nearly the whole of the cargo was lost as well as the

ship. The captain and crew, however, got safely to Jamaica, and so to

England; the captain dying on the voyage home.

The crime soon became public. Mate, carpenter, and crew were eager to

disavow complicity, and voluntarily gave information. The Wallaces were

arrested, committed to Newgate, and tried at the Old Bailey. The case

was clearly proved against them, and both were sentenced to

transportation for life. While lying in Newgate, awaiting removal to the

convict ship, both prisoners made full confessions. According to their

own statements the loss of the 'Dryad' was only one of six intentional

shipwrecks with which they had been concerned. The crime of fraudulent

insurance they declared was very common, and the underwriters must have

lost great sums in this way. The merchant Wallace said he had been led

into the crime by the advice and example of a city friend who had gone

largely into this nefarious business; this Wallace added that his friend

had made several voyages with the distinct intention of superintending

the predetermined shipwrecks. The other Wallace, the sailor, also traced

his lapse into crime to evil counsel. He was an honest sea-captain, he

said, trading from Liverpool, where once he had the misfortune to be

introduced to a man of wealth, the foundations of which had been laid by

buying old ships on purpose to cast them away. This person made much of

Wallace, encouraged his attentions to his daughter, and tempted him to

take to fraudulent insurance as a certain method of achieving fortune.

Wallace's relations warned him against his Liverpool friend, but he

would not take their advice, and developing his transactions, ended as

we have seen.

A clergyman nearly a century later followed in the steps of Dr. Dodd,

but did not under more humane laws lose his life. The Rev. W. Bailey,

LL.D., was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, in February 1843, of

forgery. A notorious miser, Robert Smith, had recently died in Seven

Dials, where he had amassed a considerable fortune. But among the

charges on the estate he left was a promissory note for £2875, produced

by Dr. Bailey, and purporting to be signed by Smith. The executors to

the estate disputed the validity of this document. Miss Bailey, the

doctor's sister, in whose favour the note was said to have been given,

then brought an action against the administrators, and at the trial Dr.

Bailey swore that the note had been given him by Smith. The jury did not

believe him, and the verdict was for the defendants. Subsequently Bailey

was arrested on a charge of forgery, and after a long trial found

guilty. His sentence was transportation for life.

A gigantic conspiracy to defraud was discovered in the following year,

when a solicitor named William Henry Barber, Joshua Fletcher a surgeon,

and three others were charged with forging wills for the purpose of

obtaining unclaimed stock in the funds. There were two separate affairs.

In the first a maiden lady, Miss Slack, who was the possessor of two

separate sums in consols, neglected through strange carelessness on her

own part and that of her friends to draw the dividends on more than one

sum. The other, remaining unclaimed for ten years, was transferred at

the end of that time to the commissioners for the reduction of the

National Debt. Barber, it was said, became aware of this, and that he

gained access to Miss Slack on pretence of conveying to her some funded

property left her by an aunt. By this means her signature was obtained;

a forged will was prepared bequeathing the unclaimed stock to Miss

Slack; a note purporting to be from Miss Slack was addressed to the

governor of the Bank of England, begging that the said stock might be

handed over to her, and a person calling herself Miss Slack duly

attended at the bank, where the money was handed over to her in proper

form. A second will, also forged, was propounded at Doctors Commons as

that of a Mrs. Hunt of Bristol. Mrs. Hunt had left money in the funds

which remained unclaimed, and had been transferred, as in Miss Slack's

case. Here again the money, with ten years' interest, was handed over to

Barber and another calling himself Thomas Hunt, an executor of the will.

It was shown that the will must be a forgery, as its signature was dated

1829, whereas Mrs. Hunt actually died in 1806. A third similar fraud to

the amount of £2000 was also brought to light. Fletcher was the moving

spirit of the whole business. It was he who had introduced Barber to

Miss Slack, and held all the threads of these intricate and nefarious

transactions. Barber and Fletcher were both transported for life,

although Fletcher declared that Barber was innocent, and had no guilty

knowledge of what was being done. Barber was subsequently pardoned, but

was not replaced on the rolls as an attorney till 1855, when Lord

Campbell delivered judgment on Barber's petition, to the effect that

"the evidence to establish his (Barber's) connivance in the frauds was

too doubtful for us to continue his exclusion any longer."

Banks and bankers continued to be victimized. In 1844 the Bank of

England was defrauded of a sum of £8000 by one of its clerks, Burgess,

in conjunction with an accomplice named Elder. Burgess fraudulently

transferred consols to the above amount, standing in the name of Mr.

Oxenford, to another party. A person, Elder of course, who personated

Oxenford, attended at the bank to complete the transfer and sell the

stock. Burgess, who was purposely on leave from the bank, effected the

sale, which was paid for with a cheque for nearly the whole amount on

Lubbock's Bank. Burgess and Elder proceeded in company to cash this, but

as they wanted all gold, the cashier gave them eight Bank of England

notes for £1000 each, saying that they could get so much specie nowhere

else. Thither Elder went alone, provided with a number of canvas and one

large carpet-bag. But when the latter was filled with gold it was too

heavy to lift, and Elder had to be assisted by two bank porters, who

carried it for him to a carriage waiting near the Mansion House. The

thieves, for Elder was soon joined by Burgess, drove together to Ben

Caunt's, the pugilist's, public-house in St. Martin's Lane, where the

cash was transferred from the carpet-bag to a portmanteau. The same

evening both started for Liverpool, and embarking on board the mail

steamer 'Britannia,' escaped to the United States.

Burgess' continued absence was soon noticed at the bank. Suspicions were

aroused when it was found that he had been employed in selling stock for

Mr. Oxenford, which developed into certainty as soon as that gentleman

was referred to. Mr. Oxenford having denied that he had made any

transfer of stock, the matter was at once put into the hands of the

police. A smart detective, Forrester, after a little inquiry,

established the fact that the man who had personated Mr. Oxenford was a

horse-dealer named Joseph Elder, an intimate acquaintance of Burgess'.

Forrester next traced the fugitives to Liverpool, and thence to Halifax,

whither he followed them, accompanied by a confidential clerk from the

bank. At Halifax Forrester learnt that the men he wanted had gone on to

Boston, thence to Buffalo and Canada, and back to Boston. He found them

at length residing at the latter place, one as a landed proprietor, the

other as a publican. Elder, the former, was soon apprehended at his

house, but he evaded the law by hanging himself with his

pocket-handkerchief. The inn belonging to Burgess was surrounded, but he

escaped through a back door on to the river, and rowed off in a boat to

a hiding-place in the woods. Next day a person betrayed him for the

reward, and he was soon captured. The proceeds of the robbery were

lodged in a Boston bank, but four hundred sovereigns were found on

Elder, while two hundred more were found in Burgess' effects. Burgess

was eventually brought back to England, tried at the Central Criminal

Court, and sentenced to transportation for life.

Within a month or two the bank of Messrs. Rogers and Co., Clement's

Lane, was broken into. Robberies as daring in conception as they were

boldly executed were common enough. One night a quantity of plate was

stolen from Windsor Castle; another time Buckingham Palace was robbed.

Of this class was the ingenious yet peculiarly simple robbery effected

at the house of Lord Fitzgerald in Belgrave Square. The butler, on the

occasion of a death in the family, when the house was in some confusion,

arranged with a burglar to come in, and with another carry off the

plate-chest in broad daylight, and as a matter of business. No one

interfered or asked any questions. The thief walked into the house in

Belgrave Square, and openly carried off the plate-chest, deposited it in

a light cart at the door, and drove away. Howse, the steward, accused

the other servants, but they retorted, declaring that he had been

visited by the thief the day previous, whom he had shown over the plate

closet. Howse and his accomplice were arrested; the former was found

guilty and sentenced to fifteen years, but the latter was acquitted.

Stealing plate was about this period the crime of a more aristocratic

thief. The club spoons and other articles of plate were long a source of

profitable income to a gentleman named Ashley, who belonged to five good

London clubs--the Junior United Service, the Union, Reform, Colonial,

and Erecthæum clubs. When one of these clubs was taken in at the Army

and Navy, that establishment also suffered. Suspicion fell at length

upon Ashley, who was seen to handle the forks and spoons at table in a

strange manner. A watch was set on his house, in Allington Street,

Pimlico, and one day a police constable tracked him to a silversmith's

in Holborn Hill, where Ashley produced four silver spoons, and begged

that his initials might be engraved upon them. Ashley was arrested as he

left the shop; the spoons were impounded, and it was found that the club

monogram had been erased from them. On a search of the prisoner's

lodgings in Allington Street, a silver fork was found, a number of

pawnbrokers' duplicates, and three small files. It was proved at the

trial that Ashley had asked his landlady for brick-dust and leather, and

it was contended that these with the files were used to alter the marks

on the plate. At most of the clubs the servants had been mulcted to make

good lost plate, which had no doubt been stolen by the prisoner. Several

pawnbrokers were subpoenaed and obliged to surrender plate, to the

extent in some cases of a couple of dozen of spoons or forks, which the

various club secretaries identified as the property of their respective

clubs. Ashley was the son of an army agent and banker, and many

witnesses were brought to attest to his previous good character, but he

was found guilty and sentenced to seven years' transportation.

A robbery of a somewhat novel kind was executed in rather a bungling

fashion by Ker, a sea-captain, whose ship brought home a mixed cargo

from Bahia and other ports. Part of the freight were four hundred rough

diamonds valued at £4000. These packages were consigned to Messrs.

Shroeder of London; and as it was known that they were to arrive in

Ker's ship, one of the owners had met her at Deal, but the captain had

already absconded with the packages of precious stones in his pocket.

Ker came at once to London, and, by the help of the landlord of a

public-house in Smithfield and others, disposed of the whole of the

diamonds. A Jew named Benjamin effected the sale to certain merchants

named Blogg and Martin, who declared that the rough diamond market was

in such a depressed condition that they could only afford to give £1750

for stones worth £4000. The circumstances of this purchase of brilliants

from a stranger at such an inadequate price was strongly commented upon

at Ker's trial. The moment it was discovered that the diamonds had

disappeared, the affair was taken up by the police. Forrester, the

detective who had pursued and captured Burgess at Boston,[117] tracked

Ker to France, and following him there, eventually captured him at

Montreuil. He was arraigned at the Old Bailey, and the case fully

proved. His sentence was seven years' transportation.

The gravest crimes continued at intervals to inspire the town with

horror, and concentrate public attention upon the gaol of Newgate, and

the murderers immured within its walls. Courvoisier's case made a great

stir. There was unusual atrocity in this murder of an aged, infirm

gentleman, a scion of the ducal house of Bedford, by his confidential

valet and personal attendant. Lord William Russell lived alone in

Norfolk Street, Park Lane. He was a widower, and seventy-three years of

age. One morning in May his lordship was found dead in his bed with his

throat cut. The fact of the murder was first discovered by the

housemaid, who, on going down early, was surprised to find the

dining-room in a state of utter confusion; the furniture turned upside

down, the drawers of the escritoire open and rifled, a bundle lying on

the floor, as though thieves had been interrupted in the act. The

housemaid summoned the cook, and both went to call the valet,

Courvoisier, who came from his room ready dressed, a suspicious

circumstance, as he was always late in the morning. The housemaid

suggested that they should see if his lordship was all right, and the

three went to his bed-room. While Courvoisier opened the shutters, the

housemaid, approaching the bed, saw that the pillow was saturated with

blood.

[Illustration: COURVOISIER.]

The discovery of the murdered man immediately followed. The

neighbourhood was alarmed, the police sent for, and a close inquiry

forthwith commenced. That Lord William Russell had committed suicide was

at once declared impossible. It was also clearly proved that no forcible

entry had been made into the house; the fresh marks of violence upon the

door had evidently been made inside, and not from outside; moreover, the

instruments, poker and chisel, by which they had no doubt been effected,

were found in the butler's pantry, used by Courvoisier. The researches

of the police soon laid bare other suspicious facts. The bundle found in

the dining-room contained, with clothes, various small articles of

plate and jewellery which a thief would probably have put into his

pocket. Upstairs in the bed-room a _rouleaux_ box for sovereigns had

been broken open, also the jewel-box and note-case, from the latter of

which was abstracted a ten-pound note known to have been in the

possession of the deceased. His lordship's watch was gone. Further

suspicion was caused by the position of a book and a wax candle by the

bedside. The latter was so placed that it could throw no light on the

former, which was a 'Life of Sir Samuel Romilly.' The intention of the

real murderer to shift the crime to burglars was evident although

futile, and the police, feeling convinced that the crime had been

committed by some inmate of the house, took Courvoisier into custody,

and placed the two female servants under surveillance. The valet's

strange demeanour had attracted attention from the first. He had hung

over the body in a state of dreadful agitation, answering no questions,

and taking no part in the proceedings.

Three days later a close search of the butler's pantry produced fresh

circumstantial evidence. Behind the skirting board several of his

lordship's rings were discovered; near it was his Waterloo medal, and

the above-mentioned ten-pound note. Further investigation was rewarded

by the discovery in the pantry of a split gold ring, used by Lord

William to carry his keys on; next, and in the same place, a chased gold

key; and at last his lordship's watch was found secreted under the leads

of the sink. All this was evidence sufficient to warrant Courvoisier's

committal for trial; but still he found friends, and a liberal

subscription was raised among the foreign servants in London to provide

funds for his defence. Courvoisier, when put on his trial, pleaded not

guilty; but on the second day the discovery of fresh evidence, more

particularly the recovery of some of Lord William's stolen plate,

induced the prisoner to make a full confession of his crime to the

lawyers who defended him. This placed them in a position of much

embarrassment. To have thrown up their brief would have been to have

secured Courvoisier's conviction. Mr. Phillips, who led in the case,

went to the other extreme, and in an impassioned address implored the

jury not to send an innocent man to the gallows. It will be remembered

that the question whether Mr. Phillips had not exceeded the limits

usually allowed to counsel was much debated at the time.

The jury without hesitation found Courvoisier guilty, and he was

sentenced to death. The prisoner's demeanour had greatly changed during

the trial. Coolness amounting almost to effrontery gave way to hopeless

dejection. On his removal to Newgate after sentence, he admitted that he

had been justly convicted, and expressed great anxiety that his

fellow-servants should be relieved from all suspicion. Later in the day

he tried to commit suicide by cramming a towel down his throat, but was

prevented. Next morning he made a full confession in presence of his

attorney, and the governor, Mr. Cope. In this he gave as the motives of

his crime a quarrel he had with his master, who threatened to discharge

him without a character. Lord William, according to the valet, was of a

peevish, difficult temper; he was annoyed with his man for various small

omissions and acts of forgetfulness, and on the night of the murder had

taken Courvoisier to task rather sharply. Finally, on coming downstairs

after bed-time, Lord William had found Courvoisier in the dining-room.

"What are you doing here?" asked his lordship. "You can have no good

intentions; you must quit my service to-morrow morning." This seems to

have decided Courvoisier, who took a carving-knife from the sideboard in

the dining-room, went upstairs to Lord William's bed-room, and drew the

knife across his throat. "He appeared to die instantly," said the

murderer, in conclusion. His account of his acts and movements after the

deed varied so considerably in the several documents he left behind,

that too much reliance cannot be placed upon his confession. His last

statement contains the words, "The public now think I am a liar, and

they will not believe me when I say the truth." This was no doubt the

case, but this much truth his confession may be taken to contain: that

Courvoisier was idle, discontented, ready to take offence, greedy of

gain; that he could not resist the opportunity for robbery offered him

by his situation at Lord William Russell's; that when vexed with his

master he did not shrink from murder, both for revenge and to conceal

his other crimes.

Courvoisier wished to commit suicide in Newgate, but was prevented by

the vigilant supervision to which he was subjected while in gaol. The

attempt was to have been made by opening a vein and allowing himself to

bleed to death. The Sunday night before his execution he would not go to

bed when ordered. The governor insisted, but Courvoisier showed great

reluctance to strip. The order was, however, at length obeyed, and the

whole of the prisoner's clothes were minutely searched. In the pocket of

the coat Mr. Cope, the governor, found a neatly-folded cloth, and asked

what it was for. Courvoisier admitted that he had intended to bind it

tightly round his arm and bleed himself to death in the night. The next

inquiry was how he hoped to open a vein. "With a bit of sharpened stick

picked out of the ordinary firewood." "Where is it?" asked the governor.

The prisoner replied that he had left it in the mattress of which he had

just been deprived. The bed was searched, but no piece of sharpened wood

was found. It was thought that it might have been lost in changing the

mattresses. The cloth above referred to belonged to the inner seam of

his trousers, which he had managed to tear out. There is nothing to show

that Courvoisier really contemplated self-destruction.

A murder which reproduced many of the features of that committed by

Greenacre soon followed, and excited the public mind even more than

that of Courvoisier's. Daniel Good's crime might have remained long

undiscovered but for his own careless stupidity. He was coachman to a

gentleman at Roehampton. One day he went into a pawnbroker's at

Wandsworth, and bought a pair of breeches on credit. At the same time he

was seen to steal and secrete a pair of trousers. The shop-boy gave

information. Good was followed to his stables by a policeman, but

obstinately denied the theft. The policeman insisted on searching the

premises, at which Good displayed some uneasiness. This increased when

the officer, accompanied by two others, a neighbour and a bailiff,

entered one of the stables. Good now offered to go to Wandsworth and

satisfy the pawnbroker. Just at this moment, however, the searchers

found concealed under two trusses of hay a woman's headless and

dismembered trunk. At the constable's cry of alarm Good rushed from the

stable and locked the door behind him. Some time elapsed before the

imprisoned party could force open the doors, and by then the fugitive

had escaped. Medical assistance having been summoned, it was ascertained

how the dismemberment had been effected. At the same time an

overpowering odour attracted them to the adjoining harness-room, where

the missing remains were raked out half consumed in the ashes of a wood

fire. In the same room a large axe and saw were found covered with

blood.

Inquiry into the character of Good exposed him as a loose liver, who

"kept company" with several women. One called his sister, but supposed

to be his wife, had occupied a room in South Street, Manchester Square,

with a son of Good's by a former wife. Another wife, real or fictitious,

existed in Spitalfields, and evidence was given of close relation

between Good and a third woman, a girl named Butcher, residing at

Woolwich. The victim was the first of these three. Good had told her,

much to her perturbation, that she was to move from South Street to

Roehampton, and one day he fetched her. They were seen together on

Barnes Common, and again in Putney Park Lane, where they were talking

loud and angrily. The poor creature was never seen again alive. The

actual method of the murder was never exactly ascertained. Good himself

remained at large for some weeks. He had tramped as far as Tunbridge,

where he obtained work as a bricklayer's labourer; he there gave

satisfaction for industry, but he was taciturn, and would hold no

converse with his fellows. The woman where he lodged noticed that he was

very restless at night, moaning and sighing much. Detection came

unexpectedly. He was recognized by an ex-policeman who had known him at

Roehampton, and immediately arrested. In his effects were found the

clothes he had on at the time of his escape from the stables, and under

the jacket he was wearing was a piece of a woman's calico apron stained

with blood, which he had used to save the pressure on his shoulder by

the hod. Good was committed to Newgate, and tried at the Central

Criminal Court before a crowded court. He made a rambling defence,

ending by saying, "Good ladies and gentlemen all, I have a great deal

more to say, but I am so bad I cannot say it." The case was clearly

proved against him, and he was condemned, sentenced, and duly executed.

Hocker's murder is in its way interesting, as affording another proof of

the extraordinary way in which the culprit returned to the scene of his

guilt. The cries of his victim, a Mr. Delarue, brought passers-by and

policemen to the spot, a lonely place near a dead wall beyond Belsize

Hall, Hampstead, but too late to give substantial aid. While the body

lay there still warm, battered and bleeding from the cruel blows

inflicted upon him by his cowardly assailant, a man came by singing. He

entered into conversation with the policemen, and learnt, as it seemed

for the first time, what had happened. His remark was, "It is a nasty

job;" he took hold of the dead hand, and confessed that he felt "queer"

at the shocking sight. This sight was his own handiwork, yet he could

not overcome the strange fascination it had for him, and remained by the

side of the corpse till the stretcher came. Even then he followed it as

far as Belsize Lane. It was here that the others engaged in their dismal

office in removing the dead first got a good look at the stranger's

face. He wanted a light for a cigar, and got it from a lantern which was

lifted up and fully betrayed his features. It was noticed that he wore a

mackintosh. Next day the police, in making a careful search of the scene

of the murder, picked up a coat-button, which afterwards played an

important part in the identification of the murderer. A letter, which

afforded an additional clue, was also found in the pocket of the

deceased. Still it was many weeks before any arrest was made. In the

mean time the police were not idle. It came out by degrees that the

person who had been seen in Belsize Lane on the night the body was found

was a friend of the deceased. His name was Hocker; he was by trade a

ladies' shoemaker; and it was also ascertained that after the day of the

murder he was flush of money. He was soon afterwards arrested on

suspicion, and a search of his lodgings brought to light several

garments saturated with blood; a coat among them much torn and stained,

with three buttons missing, one of which corresponded with that picked

up at Hampstead. The letter found in the pocket of the deceased was

sealed with a wafer marked F, and many of the same sort were found in

the possession of the accused. This was enough to obtain a committal,

after several remands; but the case contained elements of doubt, and the

evidence at the trial was entirely circumstantial. A witness deposed to

meeting Hocker, soon after the cries of murder were heard, running at a

dog-trot into London, and others swore that they plainly recognized him

as the man seen soon afterwards in the lane. A woman whom he called on

the same evening declared he had worn a mackintosh, his coat was much

torn, there was a stain of blood on his shirt-cuff, and he was in

possession, the first time to her knowledge, of a watch. This was

Delarue's watch, fully identified as such, which Hocker told his brother

Delarue had given him the morning of the murder.

These were damnatory facts which well supported the prosecution. The

prisoner made an elaborate defence, in which he sought to vilify the

character of deceased as the seducer of an innocent girl to whom he

(Hocker) had been fondly attached. When her ruin was discovered her

brother panted for revenge. Hocker, whose skill in counterfeiting

handwriting was known, was asked to fabricate a letter making an

assignation with Delarue in a lonely part of Hampstead. Hocker and the

brother went to the spot, where the latter left him to meet his sister's

seducer alone. Soon afterwards Hocker heard cries of "murder," and

proceeding to where they came from, found Delarue dead, slain by the

furious brother. Hocker was so overcome, feeling himself the principal

cause of the tragedy, that he rushed to a slaughter-house in Hampstead

and purposely stained his clothes with blood. Such an extravagant

defence did not weigh with judge or jury; the first summed up dead

against the prisoner, and the latter, after retiring for ten minutes,

found him guilty. Hocker's conduct in Newgate while under sentence of

death was most extraordinary. He drew up several long statements,

containing narratives purely fictitious, imputing crimes to his victim,

and repeating his line of defence, that Delarue had suffered by the

hands of imaginary outraged brothers acting as the avengers of females

deeply injured by him. Hocker made several pretended confessions and

revelations, all of which were proved to be absolutely false by the

police on inquiry. His demeanour was a strange compound of wickedness,

falsehood, and deceit. But at the fatal hour his hardihood forsook him,

and he was almost insensible when taken out of his cell for execution.

Restoratives were applied, but he was in a fainting condition when tied,

and had to be supported by the assistant executioner while Calcraft

adjusted the noose.

There was an epidemic of murder in the United Kingdom about 1848-9. In

November of the first-named year occurred the wholesale slaughter of the

Jermys in their house, Stanfield Hall, by the miscreant Rush. Soon

afterwards, in Gloucestershire, a maidservant, Sarah Thomas, murdered

her mistress, an aged woman, by beating out her brains with a stone.

Next year John Gleeson Wilson, at Liverpool, murdered a woman, Ann

Henrichson, also a maidservant and two children; while in Ireland a wife

dashed out her husband's brains with a hammer. London did not escape the

contagion, and prominent among the detestable crimes of the period

stands that of the Mannings at Bermondsey. These great criminals

suffered at Horsemonger Lane Gaol, but they were tried at the Central

Criminal Court, and were for some time inmates of Newgate. Their victim

was a man named Patrick O'Connor, a Custom-House gauger, who had been a

suitor of Marie de Roux before she became Mrs. Manning. Marie de Roux

up to the time of her marriage had been in service as lady's-maid to

Lady Blantyre, daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland, and Manning hoped

to get some small Government appointment through his wife's interest. He

had failed in this as well as in the business of a publican, which he

had at one time adopted. After the marriage a close intimacy was still

maintained between O'Connor and the Mannings. He lived at Mile End,

whence he walked often to call at 3, Minver Place, Bermondsey, the

residence of his old love. O'Connor was a man of substance. He had long

followed the profitable trade of a money-lender, and by dint of usurious

interest on small sums advanced to needy neighbours, had amassed as much

as £8000 or £10,000. His wealth was well known to "Maria," as he called

Mrs. Manning, who made several ineffectual attempts to get money out of

him. At last this fiendish woman made up her mind to murder O'Connor and

appropriate all his possessions. Her husband, to whom she coolly

confided her intention, a heavy brutish fellow, was yet aghast at his

wife's resolve, and tried hard to dissuade her from her bad purpose. In

his confession after sentence he declared that she plied him well with

brandy at this period, and that during the whole time he was never in

his right senses. Meanwhile this woman, unflinching in her cold, bloody

determination, carefully laid all her plans for the consummation of the

deed.

One fine afternoon in August, O'Connor was met walking in the direction

of Bermondsey. He was dressed with particular care, as he was to dine at

the Mannings and meet friends, one a young lady. He was seen afterwards

smoking and talking with his hosts in their back parlour, and never seen

again alive. It came out in the husband's confession that Mrs. Manning

induced O'Connor to go down to the kitchen to wash his hands, that she

followed him to the basement, that she stood behind him as he stood near

the open grave she herself had dug for him, and which he mistook for a

drain, and that while he was speaking to her she put the muzzle of a

pistol close to the back of his head and shot him down. She ran

upstairs, told her husband, made him go down to look at her handiwork,

and as O'Connor was not quite dead, Manning gave the _coup de grâce_

with a crowbar. After this Mrs. Manning changed her dress and went off

in a cab to O'Connor's lodgings, which, having possessed herself of the

murdered man's keys, she rifled from end to end. Returning to her own

home, where Manning meantime had been calmly smoking and talking to the

neighbours over the basement wall, the corpse lying just inside the

kitchen all the while, the two set to work to strip the body and hide it

under the stones of the floor. This job was not completed till the

following day, as the hole had to be enlarged, and the only tool they

had was a dust-shovel. A quantity of quicklime was thrown in with the

body to destroy all identification. This was on a Thursday evening. For

the remainder of that week and part of the next the murderers stayed in

the house, and occupied the kitchen, close to the remains of their

victim. On the Sunday Mrs. Manning roasted a goose at this same kitchen

fire, and ate it with relish in the afternoon. This cold-blooded

indifference after the event was only outdone by the premeditation of

this horrible murder. The hole must have been excavated and the

quicklime purchased quite three weeks before O'Connor met his death, and

during that time he must frequently have stood or sat over his own

grave.

Discovery of the murder came in this wise. O'Connor, a punctual and

well-conducted official, was at once missed at the London Docks. On the

third day his friends began to inquire for him, and at their request two

police officers were sent to Bermondsey to inquire for him at the

Mannings, with whom it was well known that he was very intimate. The

Mannings had seen or heard nothing of him, of course. As O'Connor still

did not turn up, the police after a couple of days returned to Minver

Place. The house was empty, bare and stripped of all its furniture, and

its former occupants had decamped. The circumstance was suspicious, and

a search was at once made of the whole premises. In the back kitchen one

of the detectives remarked that the cement between certain stones looked

lighter than the rest, and on trying it with a knife, he found that it

was soft and new, while elsewhere it was set and hard. The stones were

at once taken up; beneath them was a layer of fresh mortar, beneath

that a lot of loose earth, amongst which a stocking was turned up, and

presently a human toe. Six inches lower the body of O'Connor was

uncovered. He was lying on his face, his legs tied up to his hips so as

to allow of the body fitting into the hole. The lime had done its work

so rapidly that the features would have been indistinguishable but for

the prominent chin and a set of false teeth.

The corpse settled all doubts, and the next point was to lay hands upon

the Mannings. It was soon ascertained that the wife had gone off in a

cab with a quantity of luggage. Part of this she had deposited to be

left till called for at one station, while she had gone herself to

another, that at Euston Square. At the first the boxes were impounded,

opened, and found to contain many of O'Connor's effects. At the second

exact information was obtained of Mrs. Manning's movements. She had gone

to Edinburgh. A telegraphic message, then newly adapted to the purposes

of criminal detection, advised the Edinburgh police of the whole affair,

and within an hour an answer was telegraphed, stating that Mrs. Manning

was in custody. She had been to brokers to negotiate the sale of certain

foreign railway stock, with which they had been warned from London not

to deal, and they had given information to the police. Her arrest was

planned, and, when the telegram arrived from London, completed. An

examination of her boxes disclosed a quantity of O'Connor's property.

Mrs. Manning was transferred to London and lodged in the Horsemonger

Lane Gaol, where her husband soon afterwards joined her. He had fled to

Jersey, where he was recognized and arrested. Each tried to throw the

blame on the other; Manning declared his wife had committed the murder,

Mrs. Manning indignantly denied the charge.

The prisoners were in due course transferred to Newgate, to be put upon

their trial at the Central Criminal Court. A great number of

distinguished people assembled as usual at the Old Bailey on the day of

trial. The Mannings were arraigned together; the husband standing at one

of the front corners of the dock, his wife at the other end. Manning,

who was dressed in black, appeared to be a heavy, bull-necked,

repulsive-looking man, with a very fair complexion and light hair. Mrs.

Manning was not without personal charms; her face was comely, she had

dark hair and good eyes, and was above the middle height, yet inclined

to be stout. She was smartly dressed in a plaid shawl, a white lace cap;

her hair was dressed in long _crêpe_ bands. She had lace ruffles at her

wrist, and wore primrose-coloured kid gloves. The case rested upon the

facts which have been already set forth, and was proved to the

satisfaction of the jury, who brought in a verdict of guilty. Manning,

when sentence of death was passed on him, said nothing; but Mrs.

Manning, speaking in a foreign accent, addressed the court with great

fluency and vehemence. She complained that she had no justice; there was

no law for her, she had found no protection either from judges, the

prosecutor, or her husband. She had not been treated like a Christian,

but like a wild beast of the forest. She declared that the money found

in her possession had been sent her from abroad; that O'Connor had been

more to her than her husband, that she ought to have married him. It was

against common sense to charge her with murdering the only friend she

had in the world; the culprit was really her husband, who killed

O'Connor out of jealousy and revengeful feelings. When the judge assumed

the black cap Mrs. Manning became still more violent, shouting, "No, no,

I will not stand it! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" and would

have left the dock had not Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate, restrained

her. After judgment was passed she repeatedly cried out Shame! and

stretching out her hand, she gathered up a quantity of the rue which,

following ancient custom dating from the days of the gaol fever, was

strewn in front of the dock, and sprinkled it towards the bench with a

contemptuous gesture.

On being removed to Newgate from the court Mrs. Manning became perfectly

furious. She uttered loud imprecations, cursing judge, jury, barristers,

witnesses, and all who stood around. Her favourite and most

often-repeated expression was, "D--n seize you all." They had to

handcuff her by force against the most violent resistance, and still she

raged and stormed, shaking her clenched and manacled hands in the

officers' faces. From Newgate the Mannings were taken in separate cabs

to Horsemonger Lane Gaol. On this journey her manner changed

completely. She became flippant, joked with the officers, asked how they

liked her "resolution" in the dock, and expressed the utmost contempt

for her husband, whom she never intended to acknowledge or speak to

again. Later her mood changed to abject despair. On reaching the

condemned cell she threw herself upon the floor and shrieked in an

hysterical agony of tears. After this, until the day of execution, she

recovered her spirits, and displayed reckless effrontery, mocking at the

chaplain, and turning a deaf ear to the counsels of a benevolent lady

who came to visit. Now she abused the jury, now called Manning a

vagabond, and through all ate heartily at every meal, slept soundly at

nights, and talked with cheerfulness on almost any subject.

Nevertheless, she attempted to commit suicide by driving her nails,

purposely left long, into her throat. She was discovered just as she was

getting black in the face. Manning's demeanour was more in harmony with

his situation, and the full confession he made elucidated all dark and

uncertain points in connection with the crime. The actual execution,

which took place at another prison than Newgate, is rather beyond the

scope of this work. But it may be mentioned that the concourse was so

enormous that it drew down the well-merited and trenchant disapproval of

Charles Dickens, who wrote to the 'Times,' saying that he believed "a

sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense

crowd collected at the execution this morning could be imagined by no

man, and presented by no heathen land under the sun. The horrors of the

gibbet, and of the crime which brought the wretched murderers to it,

faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks, and language of

the assembled spectators. When I came upon the scene at midnight, the

shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised from time to time,

denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already

assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold." It will be in the

memory of many that Mrs. Manning appeared on the scaffold in a black

satin dress, which was bound tightly round her waist. This preference

brought the costly stuff into disrepute, and its unpopularity lasted for

nearly thirty years.

I will briefly describe one or two of the more remarkable murders in the

years immediately following, then pass on to another branch of crime.

Robert Marley at the time of his arrest called himself a surgical

instrument maker. It was understood also that he had served in the army

as a private, and had, moreover, undergone a sentence of transportation.

But it was supposed that he had been once in a good position, well born,

and well educated. When lying under sentence of death in Newgate, he was

visited by a lady, a gentlewoman in every sense of the word, who was

said to be his sister. His determined addiction to evil courses had led

to his being cast off by his family, and he must have been at the end of

his resources when he committed the crime for which he suffered. His

offence was the murder of Richard Cope, a working jeweller, shopman to a

Mr. Berry of Parliament Street. It was Cope's duty to stay in the shop

till the last, close the shutters, secure the stock of watches and

jewellery, then lock up the place and take on the keys to Mr. Berry's

private house in Pimlico. Cope, a small man, crippled, and of weakly

constitution, was alone in the shop about 9.30; the shutters were up,

and he was preparing to close, when Marley entered and fell upon him

with a life-preserver, meaning to kill him and rifle the shop. The noise

of the struggle was heard outside in the street, and bystanders peeped

in through the shutters, but no one entered or sought to interfere in

what seemed only a domestic quarrel. A milliner's porter, Lerigo, was

also attracted by the noise of the row, but after walking a few paces he

felt dissatisfied, and returned to the spot. Pushing the shop-door open,

he saw Marley finishing his murderous assault. Lerigo turned for

assistance to take the man into custody. Marley, disturbed, picked up a

cigar and parcel from the counter, then ran out, pursued by Lerigo only.

Marley ran along the street, down into Cannon Row, then into Palace

Yard, where the waterman of the cab-tank, in obedience to Lerigo's

shouts, collared the fugitive. Escorted by his two captors, Marley was

taken back into Parliament Street to the jeweller's shop. The policemen

were now in possession; two of them supported Cope, who was still alive,

although insensible, and Marley was apprehended. The evidence against

him was completed by his identification by Cope in Westminster Hospital,

who survived long enough to make a formal deposition before Mr. Jardine,

the police magistrate, that Marley was the man who had beaten him to

death.

Marley at his trial was undefended, and the sheriffs offered him

counsel; but he declined. The witnesses against him all spoke the truth,

he said; there was no case to make out; why waste money on lawyers for

the defence? His demeanour was cool and collected throughout; he seemed

while in Newgate to realize thoroughly that there was no hope for him,

and was determined to face his fate bravely. After sentence, the Newgate

officers who had special charge of him noticed that he slept well and

ate well, enjoying all his meals. One of them went into his cell just at

dinner-time; the great clock of St. Sepulchre's close by was striking

the hour, and Marley, who had his elbows on the table, with his head

resting on his hands, looked up and observed calmly, "Go along, clock;

come along, gallows." On the dread morning he came out to execution

quite gaily, and tripped up the stairs to the scaffold. His captors, it

may be added (Lerigo and Allen), were warmly commended by the judge for

their courage and activity. The former was given a reward of twenty and

the latter of ten pounds.

A murderous assault on a police constable, which so nearly ended fatally

that the culprit was sentenced to death, although not executed, was

perpetrated in 1852. The case was accompanied with the most shocking

brutality. Cannon, by trade a chimney-sweep, had long been characterized

by the bitterest hatred of the police force, and had been repeatedly

sentenced to imprisonment for most desperate and ferocious attacks upon

various constables. His last victim was Dwyer, a fine young officer who

had been summoned to take Cannon into custody when the latter was drunk

and riotous in front of a public-house. Dwyer found Cannon bleeding

profusely from a wound in the head, and persuaded him to go to a

doctor's. They walked together quietly for some little distance, then

Cannon, without the slightest warning, threw the constable on his back,

and violently assaulted him by jumping on his chest and stomach, and by

getting his hand inside Dwyer's stock, with the idea of strangling him.

Dwyer managed to overpower his assailant, and got to his feet; but

Cannon butted at him with his head, and again threw him to the ground,

after which he kicked his prostrate foe in the most brutal and cowardly

manner, and until he was almost senseless, and bruised from head to

foot. Once more Dwyer got to his feet, and managed, by drawing his

staff, to keep Cannon at bay until a second constable came to his aid.

All this time not one of a numerous body of bystanders offered to assist

the policeman in his extremity. On the contrary, many of them encouraged

the brutal assailant in his savage attack. To Cannon's infinite

surprise, he was indicted for attempt to murder, and not for a simple

assault, and found guilty. The judge, in passing sentence of death,

told him he richly deserved the punishment. As Dwyer survived, Cannon

escaped the death sentence, which was commuted to penal servitude for

life. A handsome sum was subscribed for the injured constable, who was

disabled for life.

Only a few have vied with Cannon in fiendish cruelty and brutality. One

of these was Mobbs, who lived in the Minories, generally known by the

soubriquet of "General Haynau," a name execrated in England about this

time. Mobbs systematically ill-used his wife for a long space of time,

and at last cut her throat. For this he was executed in front of Newgate

in 1833. Emmanuel Barthelemy again, the French refugee, was a murderer

of the same description, who despatched his victim with a loaded cane,

after which, to secure his escape, he shot an old soldier who had

attempted to detain him. He was convicted and executed. He died

impenitent, declaring that he had no belief, and that it was idle to ask

forgiveness of God. "I want forgiveness of man; I want those doors (of

the prison) opened." Barthelemy was generally supposed to have been a

secret agent of the French police.

I will now pass to grave but less atrocious crimes. In 1850 occurred the

first of a series of gigantic frauds, which followed each other at no

long intervals, which had a strong family likeness, and originated all

of them to make money easily, without capital, and at railroad speed.

Walter Watts was an inventor, a creator, who struck an entirely new and

original line of crime. Employed as a clerk in the Globe Assurance, he

with unusual quickness of apprehension discovered and promptly turned to

account an inexcusably lax system of management, which offered peculiar

chances of profit to an ingenious and unscrupulous man. It was the

custom in this office to make the banker's pass-book the basis of the

entries in the company's ledgers. Thus, when a payment was made by the

company, the amount disbursed was carried to account in the general

books from its entry in the pass-book, and without reference to or

comparison with the documents in which the payment was claimed. This

pass-book, when not at the bank, was in the exclusive custody of Watts.

The cheques drawn by the directors also passed through his hands; to him

too they came back to be verified and put by, after they had been cashed

by the bank. In this way Watts had complete control over the whole of

the monetary transactions of the company. He could do what he liked with

the pass-book, and by its adoption, as described as the basis of all

entries, there was no independent check upon him if he chose to tamper

with it. This he did to an enormous extent, continually altering,

erasing, and adding figures to correspond with and cover the

abstractions he made of various cheques as they were drawn. It seems

incredible that this pass-book, which when produced in court was a mass

of blots and erasures, should not have created suspicion of foul play

either at the bank or at the company's board. Implicit confidence

appears to have been placed in Watts, who was the son of an old and

trusted _employé_, and, moreover, a young man of plausible address.

Watts led two lives. In the West End he was a man of fashion, with a

town house, a house at Brighton, and a cellar full of good wine at both.

He rode a priceless hack in Rotten Row, or drove down to Richmond in a

mail phaeton and pair. He played high, and spent his nights at the club,

or in joyous and dissolute company. When other pleasures palled he took

a theatre, and posed as a munificent patron of the dramatic art. Under

his auspices several "stars" appeared on the boards of the Marylebone

theatre, and later he became manager of the newly rebuilt Olympic at

Wych Street. No one cared too closely to inquire into the sources of

wealth. Some said he was a fortunate speculator in stocks, others that

he had had extraordinary luck as a gold-digger. Had his West End and

little-informed associates followed him into the city, whither he was

taken every morning in a smart brougham, they would have seen him alight

from it in Cornhill, and walk forward on foot to enter as a humble and

unpretending _employé_ the doors of the Globe Assurance office. His

situation exactly described was that of check clerk in the cashier's

department, and his salary was £200 a year. Nevertheless, in this

position, through the culpable carelessness which left him unfettered,

he managed between 1844 and 1850 to embezzle and apply to his own

purposes some £71,000. The detection of these frauds came while he was

still prominently before the world as the lessee of the Olympic. Rumours

were abroad that serious defalcations had been discovered in one of the

insurance offices, but it was long before the public realized that the

fraudulent clerk and the great theatrical manager were one and the same

person. Watts's crime was discovered by the secretary of the Globe

Company, who came suddenly upon the extensive falsification of the

pass-book. An inquiry was at once set on foot, and the frauds were

traced to Watts. The latter, when first taxed with his offence,

protested his innocence boldly, and positively denied all knowledge of

the affair; and he had so cleverly destroyed all traces that it was not

easy to bring home the charge. But it was proved that Watts had

appropriated one cheque for £1400, which he had paid into his own

bankers, and on this he was committed to Newgate for trial. There were

two counts in the indictment: one for stealing a cheque value £1400, the

second for stealing a bit of paper value one penny. The jury found him

guilty of the latter only, with a point of law reserved. This was fully

argued before three judges, who decided that the act of stealing the bit

of paper involved a much more serious offence, and told him they should

punish him for what he had really done, and not for the slight offence

as it appeared on the record. The sentence of the court, one of ten

years' transportation, struck the prisoner with dismay. He had been led

to suppose that twelve months' imprisonment was the utmost the law

could inflict, and he broke down utterly under the unexpected blow. That

same evening he committed suicide in Newgate.

The details of the suicide were given at the inquest. Watts had been in

ill-health from the time of his first arrest. In Giltspur Street

Compter, where he was first lodged, he showed symptoms of delirium

tremens, and admitted that he had been addicted to the excessive use of

stimulants. His health improved, but was still indifferent when he was

brought up for sentence, and he was an occupant of the Newgate

infirmary. He returned from court in a state of gloomy dejection, and in

the middle of the night one of the fellow-prisoners who slept in the

same ward noticed that he was not in his bed. This man got up to look

for him, and found him hanging from the bars of a neighbouring room. He

had made use of a piece of rope cut out from the sacking of his

bedstead, and had tied his feet together with a silk pocket-handkerchief.

The prison officers were called, but Watts was quite cold and stiff when

he was cut down. Strange to say, a second suicide occurred in Newgate

the same night, that of a prize-fighter named Donovan, tried the same

day, and convicted of manslaughter. Sentence of death had been recorded

against Donovan, who, like Watts, had seemingly been overcome with

sudden despair.

In 1853 a second case of gigantic fraud alarmed and scandalized the

financial world. It outshone the defalcations of Watts. Nothing to

equal the excitement caused by the forgeries of Robert Ferdinand Pries

had been known before in the city of London. He was a corn merchant who

operated largely in grain. So enormous were his transactions, that they

often affected the markets, and caused great fluctuations in prices.

These had been attributed to political action; some thought that the

large purchases in foreign grains, effected at losing prices, were

intended by the protectionists to depress the wheat market, and secure

the support of the farmers at the forthcoming election; others, that

Napoleon III., but recently proclaimed Emperor of the French, wished to

gain the popularity necessary to secure the people. Few realized that

these mysterious operations were the "convulsive attempt" of a ruined

and dishonest speculator to sustain his credit. Pries, although enjoying

a high reputation in the city, had long been in a bad way. His extensive

business had been carried on by fraud. His method was to obtain advances

twice over on the same bills of lading or corn warrants. The duplicates

were forged. In this way he obtained vast sums from several firms, and

one to which he was indebted upwards of £50,000 subsequently stopped

payment. Pries at length was discovered through a dishonoured cheque for

£3000, paid over as an instalment of £18,000 owing for an advance on

warrants. Inquiries were instituted when the cheque was protested, which

led to the discovery of the forgeries. Pries was lodged in Newgate,

tried at the Old Bailey, and transported for life.

Another set of frauds, which resembled those of Pries in principle,

although not in practice, were soon afterwards discovered. These were

the forgeries of Joseph Windle Cole. This clever but unscrupulous trader

proposed to gain the capital he needed for business purposes by raising

money on dock warrants for imported goods which had no real existence.

When such goods arrived they were frequently left at a wharf, paying

rent until it suited the importer to remove them. The dock warrant was

issued by the wharfinger as certificate that he held the goods. The

warrant thus represented money, and was often used as such, being

endorsed and passed from hand to hand as other negotiable bills. Cole's

plan was to have a wharf of his own, nominally occupied by a creature

trading as Maltby and Co. Goods would be landed at this wharf; Maltby

and Co. would issue warrants on them deliverable to the importer, and

the goods were then passed to be stored in neighbouring warehouses. The

owners of the latter would then issue a second set of warrants on these

goods, in total ignorance of the fact that they were already pledged.

Cole quickly raised money on both sets of warrants. He carried on this

game for some time with great success, and so developed his business

that in one year his transactions amounted to a couple of millions of

pounds. He had several narrow escapes. Once a warrant-holder sent down a

clerk to view certain goods, and the clerk found that these goods had

already a "stop" upon them, or were pledged. Cole escaped by throwing

the blame on a careless partner, and at once removed the "stop." Again,

some of the duplicate and fictitious warrants were held by a firm which

suspended payment, and there was no knowing into whose hands they might

fall. Cole found out where they were, and redeemed them at a heavy

outlay, thus obtaining business relations with the firm that held them,

which were soon developed, much to that firm's subsequent anger and

regret. Last of all, the well-known bankers Overend and Gurney, whose

own affairs created much excitement some years later, wishing to verify

the value of warrants they held, and sending to Maltby and Co.'s wharf,

found out half the truth. These bankers, wishing for more specific

information, asked Davidson and Gordon, a firm with which Cole was

closely allied, whether the warrants meant goods or nothing. They could

not deny that the latter was the truth, and were forthwith stigmatized

by Mr. Chapman, Overend and Gurney's representative, as rogues. But

Overend and Gurney took no steps to make the swindle public, and

therefore, according to people of more rigid principle, became in a

measure a party to the fraud.

The course of the swindlers was by no means smooth, but it was not till

1854 that suspicion arose that anything was wrong. A firm which held a

lot of warrants suddenly demanded the delivery of the goods they

covered. The goods having no existence, Cole of course could not deliver

them. About this time Davidson and Gordon, the people above-mentioned,

who had fraudulent warrants out of their own to the extent of £150,000,

suspended payment and absconded. This affected Cole's credit, and ugly

reports were in circulation charging him with the issue of simulated

warrants. These indeed were out to the value of £367,800. Cole's

difficulties increased more and more; warrant-holders came down upon him

demanding to realize their goods. Cole now suspended payment. Maltby,

who had bolted, was pursued and arrested, to end his life miserably by

committing suicide in a Newgate cell. Cole too was apprehended, and in

due course tried at the Central Criminal Court. He was found guilty, and

sentenced to the seemingly inadequate punishment of four years'

transportation. Davidson and Gordon were also sentenced to imprisonment.

A more distressing case stands next on the criminal records--the failure

and subsequent sentence of the bankers Messrs. Strahan, Paul, and Bates,

for the fraudulent disposal of securities lodged in their hands. This

firm was one of the oldest banking establishments in the kingdom, and

dated back to the Commonwealth, when, under the title of Snow and

Walton, it carried on business as pawnbrokers. The Strahan of the firm

which came to grief was a Snow who changed his name for a fortune of

£200,000; he was a man esteemed and respected in society and the world

of finance, incapable as it was thought of a dishonest deed. Sir John

Dean Paul had inherited a baronetcy from his father, together with an

honoured name; he was himself a prominent member of the Low Church, of

austere piety, active in all good works. Mr. Bates had been confidential

managing clerk, and was taken into the firm not alone as a reward for

long and faithful service, but that he might strengthen it by his long

experience and known business capacity. The bank enjoyed an excellent

reputation, it had a good connection, and was supposed to be perfectly

sound. Moreover, the partners were sober, steady men, who paid

unremitting attention to business. Yet even so early as the death of the

first Sir John Paul, the bank was insolvent, and instead of starting on

a fresh life with a new name, it should then and there have closed its

doors. In December 1851 the balance sheet showed a deficiency of upwards

of £70,000. The bank had been conducted on false principles; it had

assumed enormous responsibilities--on one side by the ownership of the

Mostyn collieries, a valueless property, and on the other by backing up

an impecunious and rotten firm of contractors with vast liabilities and

pledged to impossible works abroad. The engagements of the bank on these

two heads amounting to nearly half a million of money, produced

immediate embarrassment and financial distress.

The bank was already insolvent, and the partners had to decide between

suspending payment or continuing to hold its head above water by

flagitious processes. They chose, unhappily for themselves, the latter

alternative. Money they must have, and money they raised to meet their

urgent necessities upon the balances and securities deposited with them

by their customers. This borrowing continued, and on such a scale that

their paper was soon at a discount, and the various discount houses

would not advance sufficient sums to relieve the necessities of the

bank. Then it was that instead of merely pledging securities, the bank

sold them outright, and thus passed the Rubicon of fraud. This went on

for some time, and might never have been discovered had some good stroke

of luck provided any of the partners with money enough to retrieve the

position of the bank. But that passed from bad to worse; the firm's

paper went down further and further in value; an application to the

Committee of Bankers for assistance was peremptorily refused, then came

a run on the bank, and it was compelled to stop payment. Its debts

amounted to three-quarters of a million, and the dividend it eventually

paid was three and twopence in the pound. But worse than the bankruptcy

was the confession made by the partners in the court. They admitted that

they had made away with many of the securities intrusted to their

keeping. Following this, warrants were issued for their arrest, the

specific charge being the unlawful negotiation of Danish bonds and other

shares belonging to the Rev. Dr. Griffiths of Rochester, to the value of

£20,000.

Bates was at once captured in Norfolk Street, Strand. Police officers

went down at night to Nutfield, near Reigate, and arrested Sir John

Paul, but allowed the prisoner to sleep there. Next morning they only

just saved the train to town, and left Sir John behind on the platform,

but he subsequently surrendered himself. Mr. Strahan was arrested at a

friend's house in Bryanston Square. All three were tried at the Central

Criminal Court, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, passing

some time in Newgate _en route_. Bates, the least guilty, was pardoned

in 1858.

Two cases of extensive embezzlement which were discovered almost

simultaneously, those of Robson and Redpath, will long be remembered

both within and without the commercial world. They both reproduced many

of the features of the case of Watts, already described, but in neither

did the sums misappropriated reach quite the same high figure. But

neither Robson nor Redpath would have been able to pursue their

fraudulent designs with success had they not, like Watts, been afforded

peculiar facilities by the slackness of system and the want of

methodical administration in the concerns by which they were employed.

Robson was of humble origin, but he was well educated, and he had some

literary abilities. His proclivities were theatrical, and he was the

author of several plays, one at least of which, 'Love and Loyalty,' with

Wallack in a leading part, achieved a certain success. He began life as

a law-writer, earning thereby some fifteen or eighteen shillings a week;

but the firm he served got him a situation as clerk in the office of

the Great Northern Railway, whence he passed to a better position under

the Crystal Palace Company. He now married, although his salary was only

a pound a week; but he soon got on. He had a pleasant address, showed

good business aptitudes, and quickly acquired the approval of his

superiors. Within a year he was advanced to the post of chief clerk in

the transfer department, at a salary of £150 a year. His immediate chief

was a Mr. Fasson, upon whose confidence he gained so rapidly, through

his activity, industry, and engaging manners, that ere long the whole

management of the transfer department was intrusted to him.

Some time elapsed before Robson succumbed to temptation. He was not the

first man of loose morality and expensive tastes who preferred to risk

his future reputation and liberty to the present discomfort of living

upon narrow means. The temptation was all the greater because the

chances of successful fraud lay ready to hand. Shares in the company

were represented by certificates, which often enough never left the

company's, or more exactly Robson's, hands. He conceived the idea of

transferring shares, bogus shares from a person who held none, to any

one who would buy them in the open market. He took it for granted that

the certificates representing these bogus shares, and which practically

did not exist, would never be called for. This ingenious method of

raising funds he adopted and carried on without detection, till the

defalcations from fraudulent transfers and fraudulent issues combined

amounted to £27,000. With the proceeds of these flagitious frauds Robson

feasted and made merry. He kept open house at Kilburn Priory;

entertained literary, artistic, and dramatic celebrities; had a smart

"turn out," attended all the race-meetings, and dressed in the latest

fashion. To his wife, poor soul, he made no pretence of fidelity, and

she enjoyed only so much of his company as was necessarily spent in

receiving guests at home, or could be spared from two rival

establishments in other parts of the town. To account for his revenues

he pretended to have been very lucky on the Stock Exchange, which was at

one time true to a limited extent, and to have succeeded in other

speculations. When his friends asked why he, a wealthy man of

independent means, continued to slave on as a clerk on a pittance, he

replied gaily that his regular work at the Crystal Palace office was

useful as a sort of discipline, and kept him steady.

All this time his position was one of extreme insecurity. He was

standing over a mine which at any moment might explode. The blow fell

suddenly, and when least expected. One morning Mr. Fasson asked casually

for certain certificates, whether representing real or fictitious shares

does not appear; but they were certificates connected in some way with

Robson's long-practised frauds, and he could not produce them. His chief

asked sternly where they were. Robson said they were at Kilburn Priory.

"Let us go to Kilburn for them together," said Mr. Fasson, growing

suspicious. They drove there, and Robson on arrival did the honours of

his house, rang for lunch to gain time, but at Mr. Fasson's pressing

demands went upstairs to fetch the certificates. He came back to explain

that he had mislaid them. Mr. Fasson, more and more ill at ease, would

not accept this subterfuge, and declared they must be found. Robson

again left him, but only to gather together hastily all the money and

valuables on which he could lay his hands, with which he left the house.

Mr. Fasson waited and waited for his subordinate to re-appear, and at

last discovered his flight. A reward was forthwith offered for Robson's

apprehension. Meanwhile the absconding clerk had coolly driven to a

favourite dining-place in the West End, where a fish curry and a brace

of partridges were set before him, and he discussed the latter with

appetite, but begged that they would never give him curry again, as he

did not like it. After dinner he went into hiding for a day or two,

then, accompanied by a lady, not Mrs. Robson, he took steamer and

started for Copenhagen. But the continental police had been warned to

look out for him, and two Danish inspectors got upon his track, followed

him over to Sweden, and arrested him at Helsingfors. Thence he was

transferred to Copenhagen and surrendered in due course to a London

police officer.

Little more remains to be said about Robson. He appears to have accepted

his position, and to have at once resigned himself to his fate. When

brought to trial he took matters very coolly, and at first pleaded "Not

Guilty," but subsequently withdrew the plea. Sergeant Ballantine, who

prosecuted, paid him the compliment of describing him as "a young man of

great intelligence, considerable powers of mind, and possessed of an

education very much beyond the rank of life to which he originally

belonged." Robson was found guilty, and sentenced to two terms of

transportation, one for twenty and one for fourteen years. Newgate

officers who remember Robson still describe him as a fine young man, who

behaved well as a prisoner, but who had all the appearance of a

careless, thoughtless, happy-go-lucky fellow.

In many respects the embezzlement of which Leopold Redpath was guilty

closely resembled that of Robson, but it was based upon more extended

and audacious forgeries. Redpath's crime arose from his peculiar and

independent position as registrar of stock of the Great Northern Railway

Company. This offered him great facilities for the creation of

artificial stock, its sale from a fictitious holder, and transfer to

himself. All the signatures in the transfer were forged. Not only did he

thus transfer and realize "bogus" stock, but he bought _bonâ fide_

amounts, and increased their value by altering the figures, by inserting

say 1 before 500, and thus making it £1500, which larger amount was duly

carried to his credit on the register, and entered upon the certificates

of transfer. By these means Redpath misappropriated vast sums during a

period extending over ten years. The total amount was never exactly made

out, but the false stock created and issued by him was estimated at

£220,000. Even when the bubble burst Redpath, who had lived at the rate

of twenty thousand a year, had assets in the shape of land, house,

furniture, pictures, and _objets d'art_ to the value of £50,000.

He began in a very small way. First a lawyer's clerk, he then got an

appointment in the Peninsular and Oriental Company's office; afterwards

he set up as an insurance broker on his own account, but presently

failed. His fault was generosity, an open-handed, unthinking charity

which gave freely to the poor and needy the money which belonged to his

creditors. After his bankruptcy he obtained a place as clerk in the

Great Northern Railway office, from which he rose to be assistant

registrar, with the special duties of transferring shares. He soon

proved his ability, and by unremitting attention mastered the whole work

of the office. Later on he became registrar, and in this more

independent position developed to a colossal extent the frauds he had

already practised as a subordinate. Now he launched out into great

expenditure, took a house in Chester Terrace, and became known as a

Mæcenas and patron of the arts. He had a nice taste in _bric-à-brac_,

and was considered a good judge of pictures. Leading social and artistic

personages were to be met with at his house, and his hospitality was far

famed. The choicest wines, the finest fruits, peas at ten shillings a

quart, five-guinea pines, and early asparagus were to be found on his

table. But his chief extravagance, his favourite folly, was the exercise

of an ostentatious benevolence. The philanthropy he had displayed in a

small way when less prosperous became now a passion. His name headed

every subscription list; his purse was always open. Not content with

giving where assistance was solicited, he himself sought out deserving

cases and personally afforded relief. When the crash came there were

pensioners and other recipients of his bounty who could not believe that

so good a man had really been for years a swindler and a rogue. Down at

Weybridge, where he had a country place, his name was long remembered

with gratitude by the poor. During the days of his prosperity he was a

governor of Christ's Hospital, of the St. Ann's Society, and one of the

supporters and managers of the Patriotic Fund. In his person he was neat

and fastidious; he patronized the best tailors, and had a fashionable

_coiffeur_ from Hanover Square daily to curl his hair.

There was something dramatic in Redpath's detection. Just after Robson's

frauds had agitated the minds of all directors of companies, the

chairman of the Great Northern (Mr. Denison) was standing at a railway

station talking to a certain well-known peer of the realm. Redpath

passed and lifted his hat to his chairman; the latter acknowledged the

salute. But the peer rushed forward and shook Redpath warmly by the

hand. "What do you know of our clerk?" asked Mr. Denison of his

lordship. "Only that he is a capital fellow, who gives the best dinners

and balls in town." Redpath had industriously circulated reports that he

had prospered greatly in speculation; but the chairman of the Great

Northern could not realize that a clerk of the company could honestly be

in the possession of unlimited wealth. It was at once decided at the

board to make a thorough examination of all his books. Redpath was

called in and informed of the intended investigation. He tried to stave

off the evil hour by declaring that everything was perfectly right; but

finding he could not escape, he said he would resign his post, and

leaving the board-room, disappeared.

The inquiry soon revealed the colossal character of the frauds. Warrants

were issued for Redpath's arrest, but he had flown to Paris. Thither

police officers followed, only to find that he had returned to London. A

further search discovered him at breakfast at a small house in the New

Road. He was arrested, examined before a police magistrate, and

committed to Newgate. Great excitement prevailed in the city and the

West End when Redpath's defalcations were made public. The Stock Market

was greatly affected, and society, more especially that which frequents

Exeter Hall, was convulsed. The Central Criminal Court, when the trial

came on, was densely crowded, and many curious eyes were turned upon the

somewhat remarkable man who occupied the dock. He is described by a

contemporary account as a fresh-looking man of forty years of age,

slightly bald, inclined to embonpoint, and thoroughly embodying the

idea of English respectability. His manner was generally self-possessed,

but his face was marked with "uneasy earnestness," and he looked about

him with wayward, furtive glances. When the jury found a verdict of

guilty he remained unmoved. He listened without emotion to the judge's

well-merited censures, and received his sentence of transportation for

life without much surprise. Redpath passed away into the outer darkness

of a penal colony, where he was still living a year or two back. But his

name lingers still in this country as that of the first swindler of his

time, and the prototype of a class not uncommon in our later days--that

of dishonest rogues who assume piety and philanthropy as a cloak for

their misdeeds.

In Newgate Redpath is remembered by the prison officer as a difficult

man to deal with. From the moment of his reception he gave himself great

airs, as a martyr and a man heavily wronged. By-and-by, when escape

seemed hopeless, and after sentence, he suddenly degenerated into the

lowest stamp of criminal, and behaved so as to justify a belief that he

had been a gaol-bird all his life.

It has been already remarked in these pages that with changed social

conditions came a great change in the character of crimes. Highway

robberies, for instance, had disappeared, if we except the spasmodic and

severely repressed outbreak of "garotting," which at one time spread

terror throughout London. Thieves preferred now to use ingenuity rather

than brute force. It was no longer possible to stop a coach or

carriage, or rob the postman who carried the mail. The improved methods

of locomotion had put a stop to these depredations. People travelled in

company, as a rule; only when single and unprotected were they in any

danger of attack, and that but rarely. There were still big prizes,

however, to tempt the daring, and none appealed more to the thievish

instinct than the custom of transmitting gold by rail. The precious

metal was sent from place to place carefully locked up and guarded, no

doubt; but were the precautions too minute, the vigilance too close to

be eluded or overcome? This was the question which presented itself to

the fertile brain of one Pierce, who had been concerned in various

"jobs" of a dishonest character, and who for the moment was a clerk in a

betting office. He laid the suggestion before Agar, a professional

thief, who was of opinion it contained elements of success. But the

collusion and active assistance of _employés_ of the railway carriers

were indispensable, and together they sounded one Burgess, a guard on

the South-Eastern Railway, a line by which large quantities of bullion

were sent to the Continent. Burgess detailed the whole system of

transmission. The gold, packed in an iron-bound box, was securely lodged

in safes locked with patent Chubbs. Each safe had three sets of double

keys, all held by confidential servants of the company. One pair was

with the traffic superintendent in London, another with an official in

Folkestone, a third with the captain of the Folkestone and Boulogne

boat. At the other side of the Channel the French railway authorities

took charge.

The safes while on the line _en route_ between London and Folkestone

were in the guard's van. This was an important step, and they might

easily be robbed some day when Burgess was the guard, provided only that

they could be opened. The next step was to get impressions and fabricate

false keys. A new accomplice was now needed within the company's

establishment, and Pierce looked about long before he found the right

person. At last he decided to enlist one Tester, a clerk in the traffic

department, whom he thought would prove a likely tool. The four waited

patiently for their opportunity, which came when the safes were sent to

Chubbs' to be repaired; and Chubbs sent them back, but only with one

key, in such a way that Tester had possession of this key for a time. He

lent it to Agar for a brief space, who promptly took an impression on

wax. But the safes had a double lock; the difficulty was to get a copy

of the second key. This was at length effected by Agar and Pierce. After

hanging about the Folkestone office for some time, they saw at last that

the key was kept in a certain cupboard. Still watching and waiting for

the first chance, they seized it when the clerks left the office empty

for a moment. Pierce boldly stepped in, found the cupboard unlocked; he

removed the key, handed it to Agar outside, who quickly took the wax

impression, handed it back to Pierce; Pierce replaced it, left the

office, and the thing was done.

After this nothing remained but to wait for some occasion when the

amount transmitted would be sufficient to justify the risks of robbery.

It was Tester's business, who had access to the railway company's books,

to watch for this. Meanwhile the others completed their preparations

with the utmost care. A weight of shot was bought and stowed in carpet

bags ready to replace exactly the abstracted gold. Courier bags were

bought to carry the "stuff" slung over the shoulders; and last, but not

least, Agar frequently travelled up and down the line to test the false

keys he had manufactured with Pierce's assistance. Burgess admitted him

into the guard's van, where he fitted and filed the keys till they

worked easily and satisfactorily in the locks of the safe. One night

Tester whispered to Agar and Pierce, "All right," as they cautiously

lounged about London Bridge. The thieves took first-class tickets,

handed their bags full of shot to the porters, who placed them in the

guard's van. Just as the train was starting Agar slipped into the van

with Burgess, and Pierce got into a first-class carriage. Agar at once

got to work on the first safe, opened it, took out and broke into the

bullion box, removed the gold, substituted the shot from a carpet bag,

re-fastened and re-sealed the bullion box, and replaced it in the safe.

At Redhill Tester met the train and relieved the thieves of a portion of

the stolen gold. At the same station Pierce joined Agar in the guard's

van, and there were now three to carry on the robbery. The two remaining

safes were attacked and nearly entirely despoiled in the same way as the

first, and the contents transferred to the courier bags. The train was

now approaching Folkestone, and Agar and Pierce hid themselves in a dark

part of the van. At that station the safes were given out, heavy with

shot, not gold; the thieves went on to Dover, and by-and-by, with Ostend

tickets previously procured, returned to London without mishap, and by

degrees disposed of much of the stolen gold.

The theft was discovered at Boulogne, when the boxes were found not to

weigh exactly what they ought. But no clue was obtained to the thieves,

and the theft might have remained a mystery but for the subsequent bad

faith of Pierce to his accomplice Agar. The latter was ere long arrested

on a charge of uttering forged cheques, convicted, and sentenced to

transportation for life. When he knew that he could not escape his fate,

he handed over to Pierce a sum of £3000, his own, whether rightly or

wrongly acquired never came out, together with the unrealized part of

the bullion, amounting in all to some £15,000, and begged his accomplice

to invest it as a settlement on a woman named Kay, by whom he had had a

child. Pierce made Kay only a few small payments, then appropriated the

rest of the money. Kay, who had been living with Agar at the time of the

bullion robbery, went to the police in great fury and distress, and

disclosed all she knew of the affair. Agar too, in Newgate, heard how

Pierce had treated him, and at once readily turned approver. As the

evidence he gave incriminated Pierce, Burgess, and Tester, all three

were arrested and committed to Newgate for trial. The whole strange

story, the long incubation and the elaborate accomplishment of the plot,

came out at the Old Bailey, and was acknowledged to be one of the most

extraordinary on record.

Scarcely had the conviction of these daring and astute thieves been

assured, than another gigantic fraud was brought to light. The series of

boldly-conceived and cleverly-executed forgeries in which James

Townshend Saward, commonly called "Jem the Penman," was the prime mover,

has probably no parallel in the annals of crime. Saward himself is a

striking and in some respects an unique figure in criminal history. A

man of birth and education, a member of the bar, and of acknowledged

legal attainments, his proclivities were all downward. Instead of

following an honourable profession, he preferred to turn his great

natural talents and ready wits to the most nefarious practices. He was

known to the whole criminal fraternity as a high-class receiver of

stolen goods, a negotiator more especially of stolen paper, cheques and

bills, of which he made a particular use. He dealt too in the precious

metals, when they had been improperly acquired, and it was to him that

Agar, Pierce, and the rest applied when seeking to dispose of their

stolen bullion. But Saward's operations were mainly directed to the

fabrication and uttering of forged cheques. His method was comprehensive

and deeply laid. Burglars brought him the cheques they stole from

houses, thieves what they got in pocket-books. Cheques blank and

cancelled were his stock-in-trade. The former he filled up by exact

imitation of the latter, signature and all. When he could get nothing

but the blank cheque, he set in motion all sorts of schemes for

obtaining signatures, such as commencing sham actions, and addressing

formal applications, merely for the reply. One stroke of luck which he

turned to great account was the return from transportation of an old

"pal" and confederate, who brought with him some bills of exchange.

Saward's method of negotiating the cheques was equally well planned.

Like his great predecessor Old Patch,[118] he never went to a bank

himself, nor did any of his accomplices. The bearer of the cheque was

always innocent and ignorant of the fraudulent nature of the document he

presented. In order to obtain messengers of this sort, Saward answered

advertisements of persons seeking employment, and when these presented

themselves, intrusted them as a beginning with the duty of cashing

cheques. A confederate followed the emissary closely, not only to insure

fair play and the surrender of the proceeds if the cheque was cashed,

but to give timely notice if it was not, so that Saward and the rest

might make themselves scarce. As each transaction was carried out from

a different address, and a different messenger always employed, the

forgers always escaped detection. But fate overtook two of the gang,

partly through their own carelessness, when transferring their

operations to Yarmouth. One named Hardwicke assumed the name of Ralph,

and, to obtain commercial credit in Yarmouth, paid in £250 to a Yarmouth

bank as coming from a Mr. Whitney. He forgot to add that it was to be

placed to Ralph's credit, and when he called as Ralph, he was told it

was only at Mr. Whitney's disposal, and that it could be paid to no one

else. Hardwicke, or "Ralph," appealed to Saward in his difficulty, and

that clever schemer sent an elaborate letter of instructions how to ask

for the money. But while Hardwicke was in communication with Saward, the

bank was in communication with London, and the circumstances were deemed

sufficiently suspicious to warrant the arrest of the gentlemen at

Yarmouth on a charge of forgery and conspiracy.

Saward's letter to Hardwicke fell into the hands of the police and

compromised him. While Hardwicke and Atwell were in Newgate awaiting

trial, active search was made for Saward, who was at length taken in a

coffee-shop near Oxford Street, under the name of Hopkins. He resisted

at first, and denied his identity, but on being searched, two blank

cheques of the London and Westminster Bank were found in his pocket. He

then confessed that he was the redoubtable Jem Saward, or Jem the

Penman, and was conveyed to a police-court, and thence to Newgate. At

his trial Atwell and Hardwicke, two of his chief allies and accomplices,

turned approvers, and the whole scheme of systematic forgery was laid

bare. The evidence was corroborated by that of many of the victims who

had acted as messengers, and others who swore to the meetings of the

conspirators and their movements. Saward was found guilty, and the

judge, in passing sentence on him of transportation for life, expressed

deep regret that "the ingenuity, skill, and talent, which had received

so perverted and mistaken direction, had not been guided by a sense of

virtue, and directed to more honourable and useful pursuits." The

proceeds of these forgeries amounted, it was said, to some thousands per

annum. Saward spent all his share at low gaming houses, and in all

manner of debaucheries. He was in person a short, square-built man of

gentlemanly address, sharp and shrewd in conversation and manner. He was

fifty-eight at the time of his conviction, and had therefore enjoyed a

long innings.