Notorious individuals exiled—Murderous assaults on the Queen—Bank frauds—Burgess and the Bank of England—Robbery of Rogers' Bank—Fraud and embezzlement—Walter Watts—Robert F. Pries—Joseph Windle Cole—Strahan, Paul and Bates—Aristocratic bankers—Robson—Redpath—Enormous stealings—Great gold robbery on the South-Eastern Railway—Agar, Pierce and Tester—Extensive forgeries—Saward or "Jim the Penman"—Vicissitudes of a convict's life—Journeys round the world.

So long as the law ordained that removal to a far-off land should be the invariable fate of every offender who escaped "vertical punishment," as hanging was sometimes styled, we must certainly find the most notable criminals in the stream setting unceasingly southward. It will be interesting and instructive to present here some of the most notable or notorious individuals who thus left their country "for their country's good" and still more for their own, as shown in many remarkable instances on preceding pages. For a long time the great mass of passing criminality hardly rises above the commonplace, for the simple reason that the worst individuals, under the sanguinary British code of those days, were peremptorily "finished" on the scaffold. But as death penalties diminished, expatriation overtook many vicious criminals and it is with some of these that I now propose to deal.

The assassination of or the murderous assault on crowned heads and chief magistrates has been too sadly characteristic of modern crime. One tried in England upon the person of the young Queen Victoria in 1842 created a great sensation in London. The perpetrator was a certain John Francis who, moved, as was supposed, by a thirst for notoriety, fired a shot at the Queen as she was driving back to Buckingham Palace. The deed was premeditated and would have been put into execution a day earlier had not his courage failed him. A youth had seen him point a pistol at the Queen's carriage, but drop it exclaiming, "I wish I had done it." The boy weakly allowed Francis to go off without securing his apprehension, but later gave full information. The Queen was apprised of the danger, and was implored to remain within doors; but she declared she would not remain a prisoner in her own palace, and next day drove out as usual in an open barouche. Nothing happened until Her Majesty returned to Buckingham Palace about six o'clock, when, on descending Constitution Hill, with an equerry riding close on each side of her carriage, a man who had been leaning against the palace garden wall suddenly advanced, levelled a pistol at the Queen and fired. He was so close to the carriage that the smoke of his pistol enveloped the face of Colonel Wylde, one of the equerries. The Queen was untouched and at first, it is said, hardly realised the danger she had escaped. Francis had already been seized by a policeman named Trounce, who saw his movement with the pistol too late to prevent its discharge. The prisoner was conveyed without delay to the Home Office and there examined by the Privy Council, which had been hastily summoned for the purpose. On searching him the pistol was found in his pocket, the barrel still warm; also some loose powder and a bullet. There was some doubt as to whether the pistol when fired was actually loaded with ball, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty of the criminal intent to kill. Francis was sentenced to be hanged, decapitated and quartered, the old traitor's doom, but was spared, and subsequently transported for life. The enthusiasm of the people at the Queen's escape was intense, and her drive next day was one long triumphal progress. At the Italian Opera in the evening, the audience on the Queen's appearance, greeted her with loud cheers and called for the national anthem. This was in May, 1842.

Not long afterwards, a gentleman, for some occult reason of his own, committed the atrocity of striking the young Queen in the face just as she was leaving the palace. The weapon he used was a thin cane, but the blow fell lightly, as the lady-in-waiting interposed. No explanation was offered, except that the culprit was out of his mind. This was the defence set up by his friends, and several curious facts were adduced in proof of insanity. One on which great stress was laid, was that he was in habit of chartering a hansom to Wimbledon Common daily, where he amused himself by getting out and walking as fast as he could through the furze. But this line of defence broke down, and the jury found the prisoner guilty. When he came to Millbank he declared that he had been actuated only by a desire to bring disgrace on his family and belongings. In some way or other he had seriously disagreed with his father, and he took this curious means to obtain revenge. The wantonness of the outrage called for severe punishment, and the man was sentenced to seven years' transportation; but the special punishment of whipping was omitted, on the grounds of the prisoner's position in life. Whether the mere passing of this sentence was considered sufficient, or the Queen herself interposed, the prisoner at Millbank was treated with exceptional leniency and consideration. By order of the Secretary of State he was exempted from most of the restrictions to which other prisoners were subjected. He was not lodged in a cell, but in two rooms adjoining the infirmary, which he used as sitting and bedroom respectively. He did not wear the prison dress, and he had, practically, what food he liked. He seems to have awakened a sort of sympathy on the part of the warders who attended him; probably because he was a fine, tall fellow of handsome presence and engaging manners and because also they thought his offence was one of hot-headed rashness rather than premeditated wickedness. Eventually he went to Australia.

Frauds upon banks and large financial institutions became prevalent about 1844. In that year the Bank of England suffered at the hands of one of its clerks named Burgess who robbed it of £8,000 in conjunction with an accomplice named Elder. Burgess fraudulently transferred consols in the above amount to another party. Elder impersonated the owner and 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 £1,000 each, saying that they could get so much specie nowhere else. Thither Elder went alone, provided with a number of canvas bags and one large carpet bag. 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. Elder was soon joined by Burgess and they 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, owner of the stolen consols, which developed 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 in the hands of the police. A smart detective, Forrester, after a little inquiry, established the fact that the man who had impersonated Mr. Oxenford was a horse-dealer named Joseph Elder, an intimate acquaintance of Burgess's. 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 learned 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's 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. in 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 of burglaries was the ingenious yet peculiarly simple one 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 butler, 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.

In 1850 occurred the first of a series of gigantic frauds, which, following each other at short intervals, had a strong family likeness in that all of them meant 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 office, he discovered and with unusual quickness of apprehension 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 checks 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 checks 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 employee, 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 to inquire too closely into the sources of his 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 employee 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 realised that the fraudulent clerk and the great theatrical manager were one and the same person. Watts' 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 check for £1,400, which he had paid to his own bankers, and on this he was committed to Newgate for trial. There were two counts in the indictment: one for stealing a check for £1,400, the second for stealing a bit of paper valued at 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 from 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.

In 1853 a second case of gigantic fraud alarmed and scandalised the financial world. It outshone even the defalcations of Watts. Nothing to equal the excitement caused by the forgeries of Robert Ferdinand Pries had ever been known 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 support of the people. Few realised 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 check for £3,000, paid over as an instalment of £18,000 owing for an advance on warrants. Inquiries were instituted when the check 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, was 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 & Co. Goods would be landed at this wharf; Maltby & 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, that is, they 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 establishing business relations with the firm that held them, much to the firm's subsequent anger and regret. Last of all, the well-known bankers, Overend & Gurney, whose own affairs created much excitement some years later, wishing to verify the value of warrants they held, and sending to Maltby & Co.'s wharf, found out half the truth. These bankers, wishing for more specific information, asked Davidson & 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 stigmatised by Overend & Gurney's representative as rogues. But Overend & Gurney took no steps to make the swindle public, and therefore, according to people of principle, became 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 & Gordon, the firm above-mentioned, who had out fraudulent warrants 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 realise 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 & 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 & 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, 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 as 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 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; 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 barely managed to catch 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 ability. His tastes were mainly theatrical, and he was the author of several plays, one of which, at least, "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 aptitude, 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 the risk of 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 up-stairs 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 reappear, 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 at once to have 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 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 ample 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 realise "bogus" stock, but he bought bon fide amounts, increased their value by altering the figures, and in this way a 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 Peninsula and Oriental Company's office; afterwards 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 pineapples, 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 patronised 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, Mr. Denison, chairman of the Great Northern, 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 realise 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 the evangelical element of it which frequented 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 lived many years. But his name lingers still in England 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 was 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 "garrotting," 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 thought it contained elements of success. But the collusion and active assistance of employees 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 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 searched 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 checks, 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 £3,000, his own, whether rightly or wrongly acquired never came out, together with the unrealised 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 informer. 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 "Jim the Penman," was the prime mover, has probably no parallel in the annals of crime. Saward himself is a striking and in some respects a 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, checks 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 checks. His method was comprehensive and deeply laid. Burglars brought him the checks they stole from houses, thieves what they got in pocket-books. Checks 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 check, 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 checks was equally well planned. Like his great predecessor "Old Patch," he himself never went to a bank, nor did any of his accomplices. The bearer of the check 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 checks. A confederate followed the emissary closely, not only to insure fair play and the surrender of the proceeds if the check was cashed, but to give timely notice if it were 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 £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 checks of the London and Westminster Bank were found in his pocket. He then confessed that he was the redoubtable Jim Saward, or Jim 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 informers, 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 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 had a long criminal career.

The vicissitudes of the felon transport who ventured to return before his sentence of exile had expired, has been told by one of their number. His statement bears date of 1852 and runs as follows:

"At the time of the offence for which I was convicted I was suffering from the most acute pecuniary distress, with a wife and large family of children. A series of misfortunes—the most heavy was the death of my second wife, by which I lost an annuity of £150, with a great falling off, notwithstanding all my exertions, in my occupation as reporter to the public press—brought about mainly the distress in question. Previous to the commission of the offence I had through life borne an irreproachable character. In early life, from 1818 to 1822, I held some most responsible appointments in Jamaica and other West India Islands; from 1829 to 1834, I held the appointment of Magistrate's Clerk and Postmaster at Bong Bong in New South Wales; afterwards was superintendent of large farms in Bathurst, over the Blue Mountains, in the same colony. At the later period I had a wife and family of young children; the former, a most amiable partner, I had the misfortune to lose in 1838, leaving me with seven young children. My connections are most respectable. My late father was an officer of rank, and of very meritorious services. My eldest brother is at present a major in the Royal Marine Corps. I was convicted in October, 1846; was three months in Millbank Penitentiary, at which period fears were entertained that my intellect would become impaired in solitary confinement; subsequently I was three years and two months in the Warrior convict ship at Woolwich, during which period I was employed on the government works in the dockyard; and was sent abroad in March, 1850. At Millbank and the hulks I had the best possible character, as also on my arrival at Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, after a passage of four months. On my arrival I received a ticket-of-leave, which I retained until I left the colony, never having forfeited the same for a day by any kind of insubordinate conduct. My motive in leaving Van Diemen's Land was to proceed to the gold-diggings, in the hope that I might be successful and better the condition of my family at home, who were in very impoverished circumstances; but although my exertions were very great in California, Victoria, and New South Wales, I was unsuccessful. It is true I made, occasionally, some money; but I was robbed of it on the road by armed bushrangers, and frequently ill-used and robbed at Melbourne and Geelong by the worst of characters. I was shipwrecked twice, and once burnt out at sea: the first time in Torres Straits, between New Holland and New Guinea on a reef of coral rocks. Upon this occasion I lost between £70 and £80 in cash, and all my luggage. Eleven only of us got ashore, out of a ship's company of twenty-seven, chiefly Lascars, Malays, and Chinamen. After thirty days' great suffering and privation we were picked up by an American whaler, and ultimately reached Sydney, New South Wales.

"I was subsequently wrecked in a brigantine called the Triton, going from Melbourne to Adelaide, and lost all I possessed in the world, having another very narrow escape of my life. In returning from San Francisco to Melbourne in a vessel called the White Squall, she caught fire about three hundred and fifty miles from Tahiti (formerly called Otaheite). We were obliged to abandon her and take to the boats; but a great number of the crew and passengers perished by fire and water. The survivors in the boats reached Tahiti in about eight days, in a state of great exhaustion; many of them died from the effects of the same. I had the misfortune to lose nearly all I possessed upon this occasion. On reaching Melbourne I was very ill and went into the hospital. I left in about five weeks, intending to go again to Mount Alexander diggings; but, owing to ill-health, bad state of the roads from the floods, and limited means, I abandoned such intention. I had a twelvemonth before been to Ballarat, Mount Alexander, Forest Creek, Bendigo, and many other diggings: but at this time there were no police or gold escort troopers, consequently nearly all the unfortunate diggers were robbed of what they got by hordes of bushrangers, well mounted, and armed with revolvers and other weapons to the teeth. In returning to Melbourne from Forest Creek the last time, I was beat, stripped, and robbed of all I had, in the Black Forest, about halfway between Melbourne and Mount Alexander.

"I left Melbourne in the brig Kestrel for Sydney, New South Wales, at which place I was acquainted with many respectable parties, some of whom I had known as far back as 1829, when I first went to Sydney with my wife and children. The Kestrel put in at some of the settlements of New Zealand, at one of which (Auckland) was lying a barque, bound for England, in want of hands. The temptation was great to reach my dear family, for which I had mourned ever since I met with my misfortune. I shipped myself as ordinary seaman and assistant steward. We left the settlement in July, with a miserably crippled ship's company, and made a very severe passage round Cape Horn, in the winter season, which carried away masts, sails, rigging, boats, bulwarks, stanchions, etc., etc. Some of the crew were lost with the yards, and most of us were frost-bitten. We put into Rio de Janeiro to refit and provision. We proceeded on our passage, crossed the equator, touched at Funchal—one of the Azores—for two days, and reached England in September, after a severe passage of four months and twenty-six days from New Zealand.

"Under all the circumstances of my present unhappy condition, I humbly hope the legislature will humanely consider the long, severe, and various descriptions of punishment I have undergone since my conviction. I would also most respectfully call the attention of the authorities to the fact that the offence for which I have so severely suffered was the first deviation from strict rectitude during my life; and that I have never since, upon any occasion whatever, received a second sentence even of the most minor description. It was only required of me by the then regulation of the service, that I should serve five years upon the public works at Woolwich. On my embarkation for Van Diemen's Land I had done three years and four months: if I had completed the remaining twenty months I should have been discharged from the dockyard a free man. I also humbly beg to state, at the time I left Van Diemen's Land, six years after my conviction, I was entitled by the regulations of the service to a conditional pardon, which would have left me at liberty to leave the colony without further restraint. I beg to state that during the period of three years and four months I was at the hulks I worked in all the gangs in the dockyard. Upon several occasions I received severe injuries, some of which required me to be sent to the hospital ship. I was ruptured by carrying heavy weights, the effect of which I have frequently felt since, and do to the present day. During the two periods when the cholera raged in the hulks, I attended upon the sick at the hospital ships. I humbly implore the government will have compassion upon me for the sake of my numerous and respectable family, for my great mental and bodily sufferings since my conviction, and for my present weakly, worn-out debilitated state of health, and award me a mild sentence. During my captivity and absence my unfortunate wife has suffered from great destitution, and has buried two of her children. She is again bereaved of me in a distressed condition with her only surviving child, a little girl of ten years of age."

This man was set at large without punishment.