ADOLF BECK'S "DOUBLE."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 217, 10 September 1904, Page 13

ADOLF BECK'S "DOUBLE."

TALES OF WOMEN WHO WBKB VICTIMISED. LONDON. August 5. A week ago I related the strange story ot Adolf Beck's misfortunes —how he wa3 twice convicted of defrauding women on the strength of a passing resemblance to the real culprit, suffered one term of aye years' imprisonment, and ouly escaped a. second lengthy incarceration by the twelfth hour arrest of his so-called "double." Beck has now received the King's "free pardon ' for offences he had never committed, and his "double" awaits the attention of an Old Bailey judge and jury. The "'double's"' name is now declared to be Aogustus Wiihelm Meyer, bnt he has had a chequered career, and seems to have changed his name nearly as often as most men change their coats. He was arrested as "William Thomas," but in the preliminary proceedings against him at Bow-street it was disclosed that seven-and-twenty years ago lie was convicted of frauds on women similar to those now alleged against him as 'Moha . Smith," he had lodged at Highbury ail

"Captain" Weiss,"' and masqueraded as "in, Wyarf in the same salubrious London suburb, and in Adelaide had poeed as Dr. Meyer. What other names he has been Known by in other quarters of the world he has graced with his presence we do not know, but there are apparently few quarters of the civilised globe that he has not Visited, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Souti Sea Islands, America, the United Kingdom, and the Continent having all.been included in his life's itinerary of travel. Part o£ that period he spent as n travelling oculist, part its a ship's doctor, and part in prison, but bis "salad days" appear to have beea those he spent in Adelaide. There, according to the testimony of Andrew John Daj (is this, I wonder. Day, the inventor, wh* came Home some years ago to endeavour to persuade the War Office to take up a new kind of shell he had invented?), a watchmaker, who knew him intimately Iα Adelaide from 1885 till ISOO, 'Dr. Meyer" lit-ed there in great style, keeping carriages and servants, and a chef who, in Day's view, was the best in the city. Meyer also posed as a connoisseur ia matters artistic and spent lavishly on pictures.

In 1800 'Dr. Meyer' left Adelaide in order, he says, to study Koch's treatment of consumption, but on his own confession he did not stay long ia Berlin, but came on to London. From there he shipped as a surgeon on board a Clan liner to Calcutta, but left the steamer at Malta, and after wandering about the Continent and Asia Minor for a couple of years, returned La London. In the spring of 1831 he was captured by the police for an offence he was supposed to have committed three years previously, but the evidence against him was insufficient to convict him, and after a couple of remands he was dismissed. Meyer, who no>w alleges that he 13 a. Russian by birth, bears only a superficial likeness to Adolf Beck, when the two are seen together, and. it certainly says little for the powers of observation possessed by the ten or a dozea women who "identi-i fled" B«ck that they should have mistaken him for Meyer. The blunder suggests indeed that these radies ia th<*ir wrath at

being "had " were prepared to "identify" any man who bore any likeness to the person who had robbed them.

One can have little sympathy vrittt Meyer's victims. They were all of tbac

large class of young women who are ever ready to accept favours at the hands of auv casaal person of the male persuasion who looks and talks as though gifts of diamond ""ings, yachting trips, and similar luxuries were within the compass of his purse. Meyer's victims could not be fairly catalogued with the women who hannt Regentstreet at night, but, as the naval officer said of the female inhabitants of a certain South Sea Island, "they are not. bigotedly virtuous." One witness, a single young woman whom Meyer had picked up in Holborn, calmly related to the Court how he had. after a few minutes conversation, suggested that she should succeed a lady wltft whom he had been living, and who had rim away with his Jewels, and that she Uaa consented to do so. Happily for her Beck quickly discovered that the girl had nothing worth stealing, so he left her with a. worthless cheque, and promises of jewellery galore. Needless to add, perhaps, she did not see him again Oil he was in the hands of the police. Two sisters who were "had" for gold rings by Meyer were drawn into his net by rosy pictures of the delights oC life on board his yacht, before they hail, as the saying goes, "known him five minutes."

It la expected that the amount of compensation to be paid to Bock will be bf>tween £1500 and £:#OO. There are plenty or precedents for compensation after b mUearrtage of justice. In 1844, a Mr Barker, a solicitor, was transported for forgery ipleased, and pardoned in 1848, and aftetf eleTen years was granted £5000. In ISI6 a man named Habron was convicted of murder at Manchester, released in l.yi'J on the confession of another man and received £1000. Only three yeais ago a man was brought from New Zealand to Colchester on a charge of mnrder, and the case got no further than the Police Court It was clearly another case ot a "double " and the Treasury gave him £600 t» go back t* New Zealand.