CONFESSIONS OF A SWINDLER

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 183, 2 August 1913, Page 17

CONFESSIONS OF A SWINDLER

I MAX WHO PASSED AS WOMAN. ! It was a straDge story that James Arthur, Baker told the* police when arrested on | charges of theft and swindling. Baker has Bred both as a man and as a woman, and his story includes the experiences of being married to a -woman, a divorce, a second marriage and a second divorce, a marriage fj a man, and intricate counterfeiting and forgery schemes. Reared as a boy in Wal.Etit,'lowa, Baker became a school teacher. Jn several years he taught school in Mis*°_ti, Kansas and Oklahoma. In 1004 he met Miss Mabel C. Coulter, also a school *"-_her. After a short courtship they eloped an.-were married In Harlan, lowa. Four jears later she divorced him. but the two *Qe remarried in Marietta, Okla., six »o__iß later. They lived together only a ""hen they were again" separated. ™b time Baker obtained the divorce, alleging'that he had been deserted. A -aoDth or so later _saker attended a *">«"• dress ball at Harlan, lowa, garbed as a woman. At the ball was a young attorney, a stranger in the town, and to TO-mle was introduced as "Alice Baker." ■That night th e young man paid a great deal of attention to "Alice." and was- much disitppointed when he learned the next day "Mt she had "left the town." Baker's suc<ss *fnl impersonation of a woman caused Bjßgi comment in the little town. His ™M_s urged him to take it up for a proHsslon. And it was with this idea that ™.-went West a little later to obtain a poston that he night save money for a dra- *>& education. Int f went to Colorado, TJta-i and Idaho. m found that while there were plenty of Uncles for women teachers, men were ■ '.m demand. Then it occurred to him until** ITOmen ' s clothing. He bougbt an __,i ana ' SUheA as a woman, applied for ■__KM-m to a small Idaho village. So well o* e carry his attire that no one fiusJp« 3* secret. All that session he taught and, was known as "Alice | jjuj.* 6 ffleaatane the young attorney j- 4» had xoet at the fancy dress ball S 1 Ktatnea to his home in California, _j: l J'. a Tac a«on trip "-Alice" met him Angeles. He renewed his attentions, •a«id taa of *" 9 -" 0 ' seemingly to aid *e__a lament schemes of crime, they urougit a ceremoity of mairiarge.. "It k&k_ " °" oa 2h that man had a. hypnotic " 'W>&°lZ ffle -',' said Baker - -I ™ to Itwr, nder Ws control. He seemed '£§*? "* CTery actio --* , B__ e •' ° nc -* aj ' Le proposed that we l | e l . CaSl ' moT - e ?-' He obtained a W™, _ - bill an(l 'with an intricate ffla____ e engrave! _ _-_~______,,_. on _

copper plate. Then he sent mc to an art school in .Los Angeles, where I learned to do colour work. When I had finished the course he made mc colour several of tiiese bills. I knew it was wrong, but I was ■unable to refuse him anything." LIVED IN AFFLUENCE. Then Baker told a story of a trip to Japan, where the bills -were exchanged foi gold, and a return trip to California, where the couple lived in affluence for more than a year. "The attorney learned that I had a sister, Mrs. Nettie Baker Snow, who is postmistress in Sumnwrland. California When our money began to run low he proposed ttat I go to nVit her and steal the money order book at the first opportunity. This 1 dJd, and on February 2S. this year, I tore out twenty-four of twenty-five blanks from the back of the money order book. "I asked mv sister, who by this time had become reconciled to my' attire for the money order stamp to stamp my name on a purse. While she was busy 1 stamped as many of the blanks as 1 could Then I -went back to the attorney in Los Angeles, where he made a duplicate stamp and stamped the rest of the money orders Fourteen of them for a hundTed dollars each we cashed at a bank in Riverside. CaHfornia, where we had a small account, -the- others for a hundred dollars each we cashed in the post office at Pasadena. "Then we had some trouble passJng others, and the attorney proposed that I change to a man again and go to live for a short time lv each of a dozen towns near I»« Angeles. There I gained the confidence of the ministers, and in a short time the attorney would write to the minister, saying that I was his son and that he was enclosing a money order to be cashed ao,d given to mc if I attended church regularly. When I got the money I rejoined the attorney. We made Several thousand dollars in this way."