A Ticket of Leave Man.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 40, 16 February 1889, Page 4 (Supplement)

A Ticket of Leave Man.

jGftOEGE Bidw^ll, the most famous ticket of 1 leave tnaik in the world> spent a night in j one of the*most fashionable hotels in this eitYi Not'ohe of\those who saw the neatly -jkesseti man eaun^fer up and down the COf liilou' of the Fifth Avenue dreamed that he Avas:the taan who 15 years ago 6fc&rtlecl all Etek«dbytho modt gigantic frauds that v/ercij-jver planned. Ho has reformed now* and bas come to thi^ cifey to bury his past ia a btetter future. £V»rbeen }'earß °{P^ 0Q life hVrd -and rigdToiis, naye streaked his hair \\fith grey. A halting walk and hands t-hat are defotfmeti are tne legacies fchab ttlo bracelets and jbhe chains have left) him! His story reads like a- romance, and as 'hs told it lasb nipfc^ there evidently came acrosa Mna^ memories taat he niiahb wish had bcete ouried; Be is well educated, courtly in .planners and a most iritoresting talker, ' JTour visit, he said, wtien approached, 'is most unexpected. I had hoped to have come here buietly and lived my life anew. Still there 'is nothing in my present conation of which I ?ieod bo"ashamed, and I sbal^speak freely. I intend to settle down in >&i 3 city, and have rented an office in the. Vanderbilb Building ab 132, Nassatt-etvetet. I Viave just issued my autobiography, fend the sals of that, with possibly souio pictures, will r -cupy my whole attention. T&e money I °V'-o shall be applied to two purposes—the m >rfc ot my wife and myself asid for the suppv of t j ie part i on of my brother seann\ - vho wag conv i G tod with me, and Austin, v w un{ j er a Kfe sen |tence for who is n. ; ime ia w bichihehad no complicity v pa t r^r nn A ""at ho wa3 innocent ?' «\ou mean f>. d mQn do with t t 1 Sifll^ of EnglAnd than the fr^^.S6^ so had my three you had. I had, anu bub wtiWpat^^l and was tried jointly with «fc 6 imprisonment worries me very much, *or he was my younger brother, and I \o\ a fcl^l£ve yon any £>bjecfcions to tell th& story-of the frauds ?* ,<.«„-*, i c + ' Well, no : I hftiwnone. But first let me say that they we*e by no means the result of early trainfny. 1 "was well brought up My ancestors fo^p*years back were Puritans on both sidY and I was re-lio-ioiiPlv cared for. I need not tell the iffy o^my ML Ifc wae 0 lllar, d-roof and the bar-room. They becrtme-top expensive to support) legitimately, and I fe 1. I then became*'a man who was rl dangerous to the jankers of count y Three others formed of partnerahip with mo, and togeth 9 >we w*t to Europe bo work the monetary wtiWtwns there. We staved about LondoN some time, and after a little thought 11^« '*?. fc^^"' elusion that the richest bank^» ± o™™0 ™™ would probably be careless in Sf anrl I began to probe for it. I\ v™ l*.« their system of transacting business. on "UIS of exchange, and resolved to take adA n, cav e of it. One of the party was sen*.' ™ Birmingham who would do to accept "° bills, and tyro stayed in London -with rrk > one of them the drawer of the billsand theother an endorsee. I wa-a behind the ecenei. Tho bills, of conrse; wero bogus, find they Were in duo course accepted by the pal in Birmingham. Then the ba.ik discounted bhem and placed thorn to the credit of the endorsee, who drew out the cold cash by cheques. It seems mcrediole almost to me at this day to think that any institution would do business with utter -fcrangers in that way. but they did it. Hundreds of thousands and millions ofj dollars passed into our hands, bufc there we ; were, the four of us, with the Bank of Eng-1 land paying out its money to one of us on the demand of the other.' «How much did tho frauds in all amount to?'

'I really don't know. <They were so large and of such almost daily occurrence that I never counted it. 1$ *was like receiving a cab full at the tittle!/. Ib was only & question of but 6 very sborv time until we wonld have drained it out. came the detection—a slight omission ft»" the endorsement, and then the arrest and fc^pnviction. We fought <he cafe ; our solicitor, who was subsequently debarred, sold us out and we wore Sentenced for life. Fourteen years and five months I spent in* prison, and they have left their marks upon me. My stooping shoulders and halting: erait and hands yet twisted tell of what I suffered. The London " Times " and the Rothschilds said I was the cleverest banking man on earth, and that helped to make the officials doubly severe upon me. My least movement was regarded with suspicion, and many a time I was punished wrongfully.' ' What became of the money?' 11 do not know, and Ido nob care. Ido know that my solicitor got every cent I had, and then got an order for & set of diamonds which belonged to me and worth IO.OOOdoI.

4 After 14 years and 5 months' imprisori'ment I was given a ticket of leave, and came here a little more than a year ago with absolutely nothing. I met Sir Roeer Tichborne when I came here. He wob a fellow prisoner with me at.Dartmoor, arid he told me that one of my comrades had £60,000 of the money eecreted in this city. I told him that I wonld not touch it with a 10,000-feet pole,, and I never shall. The years of reflection in that English prison have set me back on the path which I should never have forsaken. When I arrived hero I went at once to my home in East Hartford, and have there lived down the etns of 15 years ago. My life is a warning to young men, and I mean it to be such. If they have already taken the first step in fraud let them hesitate. 1 defrauded the biggest institution in the world on the most gigantic plan that was evef attempted, and I was caiight, and bftve only remorse now for my wickedness. If they have taken the first step lot them f3fotm at once, and do so openly and manfully. I have seen most of the noted forgws in my day, both In prison and out of it. They may flourish for a while, bat their day comes when they are rained. There h a retriSutive justice that follows them, it may be slowly, bufc still surely.' Bidwall is 65 years old,, and !e wonder. fully preserved, considering the prison life he had to endure. His ancestors earns over in the Mayflower, and one of them, John Bidwell, built the first grififc mill with Cotton Mather at Hartford.—'St. Louis Daily Globe Democrat.'