A Remarkable Woman Swindler.

Bush Advocate, Volume XIV, Issue 299, 20 March 1903, Page 4

A Remarkable Woman Swindler.

CAREER OF CRIME

Wellington, March:lß. A young woman who recently passed into the seculsion of the Terrace gaol, Wellington, on a fairly long sentence, is the subject of a special article m the Post. Her name is not given, but as she has been connected with several swindles m the south, her identity is only thinly veiled. Born m Victoria m 1861, she arrived here from that colony m 1884, nothing up to that date having been known against her. She soon got to work m New Zealand, for she was m trouble with the law m 1886. She came of , respectable, well-to-do parents, was educated and accomplished, had been a school teacher m Victoria, and wrote a splendid hand, m fact, two or three hands, all of which things were groat factors m her criminal success. The young girl of 23 brought an amazing inventiveness into her line, which was •' confidence " trickery, backed up sometimes with forgery. Her stories lacked nothing m plausibility, and she imported into them that wealth of natural detail for which Defoe was noted m his own particular branch of literature. This, however, was not altogether an advantage, as her work Avas so peculiarly her own that the police generally recognise it. As is not uncommon with great artists, she sometimes suffered through her task being too well done. For the most part she traded on the credulity of her own sex. Her youth, accomplishments, social gifts, and knowledge of the world were used to ingratiate herself with sympathetic and sometimes admiring sisters. No case is known of her using these gifts to gam her end by means of entering into an intrigue with a man. At any rate her subsequent committal to the home at Mount Magdala, Christchurch, was m no way due to such a cause. She understood hobh men and women, but the latter were of most use to her. The starting point was generally to become a lodger m a respectable boarding-house and make friends with the proprietress and family, and with all their friends. Some money having been wheedled from a member of the family, it was usually liquidated m presents to the friends, and formed the basis of subsequent halls from them. In fact the money was mostly spent, not on the adventuress herself, but with the evident object of keeping the ball rolling, which indicates that profit was not the motive, but that the crime was the result of mania or disease. One of her recent victims to the extent of £30 was a lady whose friend (also a lady) the adventuress had met m a boarding-house m another city. Sometimes the proposition advanced by her to her victims was a splendid investment, for which the proposer would find the bulk of the money if the victim would find just a little. The " just a little" was generally forthcoming. In such a case this wonderful woman would supply exact figures of capital and interest, terms of mortgage and repayment, etc., with as much minuteness of detail as a London financier would display m a rose-tinted prospectus, to buttress her position. She would write letters to herself as coming from two or three different persons, each m a different hand. Once, haying courteously volunteered, she was left by a charmed family alone m charge of the house while the inmates j were away on a holiday. Their absence was brief, but long enough to allow ber to bave a money-lender m and raise a large sum on the furniture. For once at any rate, a money-lender "fell m" badly when the washing-up came. Her masterpipce was a bold imaginative feat. She kuew the name of a widow lady living m a country township who bad a son m a local bank ; she knew the name of a Wellington tradesman who was a friand of the widow ; and she thought out the rest. One day a lady m a neat habit rode up to the door of the tradesman, handed him a letter, and said excitedly, "It is important, I know what it is about." She barely restrained her impatience while he perused it. The letter purported to come from the widow and to state that her son was involved m bis bank accounts, that she could fiud all the missing money except L2O, and would Mr kindly send that sum by bearer ? Mr paid the L2O at once to the bearer, who rode gracefully away with it. The letter was a forgery. Mr was so sensitive about tbe way he bad been taken m that he never prosecuted for this offence. This reticence of victims for some time protected thp female swindler m her career. Her first punishment was a short committal to Cavorshani Industrial School m 1885. One of her typical feats earned ber a month's imprisonment m 1886, and she served various sentences up to 1894 or 1895. Then came the committal to Mouut Magdala. which was made at tbe instance of sympathetic ladies m Dunedin, £!id was generally looked upon as a very temporary check to a criminal career. But m tbe home she remained five years, and for nearly two years after she Mt it nothing was known against her until this last lapse. So the Magdala period really cuts this terrible career m two. And 1903 has marked a fresh start. In her last as m other falls, she was a fatalist, regarding her falling as a disease. "It is something to have ! kept good for seven years," she is reported to have remarked ; " and what oan you expect? It's m the blood." And there can be scarcely a doubt tbat I this statement is absolutely true.