BIGAMY AT 77.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 207, 30 August 1920, Page 9

BIGAMY AT 77.

AGED CONTTOTS AMAZIXG FRAUDS. (From Otir Special Correspondent.) WXDOS, July 0. The truly astonishing history of a gay Lothario of 77 was told at the Sussex. Arizes a few days ago, when Edward Dawson, smartly attired and sprightly in spite of laving left the psalmist's last milestone of life far behind, was convicted of having robbed two "brides" and deserted them within a few months in this present year. Posing as a man of means. Dawson dawned on the vision of the good folk of Lewes in January last, when he also advertised for a widow to manage a small fancy goods shop for him. A buxom widow of Brighton answered this advertisement, and, having deposited £2O as security, entered into the management of tlie 6hop. "Within three weeks Daw6on proposed marriage, was accepted, and the pair went to Worthing for a honeymoon. Dawson .left his bride once or twice on "business" trips to Lewes, and finally did not return to her. She then discovered that her furniture, which had been transferred from her old Brighton home to Lewes, had been Another widow who answered Dawson's advertisement, paid him a sum of* £3O as security, but nothing resulted from her "engagement," and Dawson disappeared only to turn up a little Jater at Bromley, in Kent, where he met another lady and went through a form o'f marriage with her. He professed to store her furniture, but when he deserted her it was found the goods had been sold. This lady—happily perhaps for''her impressionable sisters—made it her business to set the hounds o'f the law on the track of the bigamoiV beau, and when the police laid hands on him they speedily discovered that Dawson was a very old friend, with a very black record. In his young days he had performed the duties of a shorthand writer at the Central Criminal Court, and no doubt garnered there much wisdom of use to him in his later and less reputable career. ■Up to 1877 he apparently led a sufficiently blameless life to keep him out of the quillete of the law, but he strayed from the straight path in that year, and was in 18S0 sent to penal servitude for Ere years for a series of 'frauds. On release he kept out of the hands of the pol".ce for a considerable period, but in 1894, under the name of Clark, he got threo years for further frauds, and four years later qiialified for seven years durance vile for a compound of bigamy and false pretences. Remission? for good conduct in prison gave him his freedom in 1903, but a year later Dawson was tried for forgery, and sentenced to six years' penal servitude. In 1913 he was again in trouble, and false pretences secured for h'm a further five years' free board and lodging. He was. however, released on license in 1917 and duly reported himself to the police three times at the appointed intervals Then he disappeared, but a couple of years later be was convicted of getting money by false pretences at Bourne mouth, and in consideration of his age—his record being unknown to the Bench—was given a few weeks. Later in the same year, the Yarmouth magistrate awarded him twelve months' hard labour for a like offence. At the Lewes Assizes this week he received a similar sentence, so, altogether, of the last forty years of his life, Dawson has spent much the better half in gaol, his penal servj tude sentences alone' totalling twenty six years.