A REMARKABLE WOMAN SWINDLER.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11535, 18 March 1903, Page 9

A REMARKABLE WOMAN SWINDLER.

A CAREER OF CRIME.

* (special to "the _bess.") WELLINGTON, March 17. A woman who recently passed into the seclusion of the Teirace gaol here on a faMy long sentence, is the subject of a special article in to-night's "Post." Her name is not given, but aa she has been connected with several swindles in the south her anonymity will be only thinly veiled. Born in Victoria in 1861, she artived here from that colony in 1884, nothing up to that date having been known against her. She soon got to work in New Zealand, for she was in trouble with the law in 1885. She came of respectable, well-to-do parentage, was educated and accomplished, had been a school teacher in Victoria, and wrote a splendid hand. The young girl of 23 brought on amazing inventiveness into her line, which was " confidence " trickery, backed up sometimes with forgery. Her stories lacked nothing in plausibility, and ahe imported into them that wealth of natural detail for which Defoe is noted in his own particular branch of literature. This, however, was not altogether an advantage. The other work, however, was so peculiarly her own that the police could generally recognise it. Thus, as is not common 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, and 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 gain her end by means of entering into an intrigue with a man; at any rate her subsequent committal to the Home at Mount Magdala was in no way due to such a cause. Her starting point was generally to become a lodger in 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 in presents to the friends, and formed the basis of subsequent hauls from them. Sdmetimea the proposition advanced by her to her victims was a splendid investment, for which the proposer would find the b_k of the money if the victim would find just a little. Tho "just a little" was generally forthcoming, and in such a c»s_ this wonderful woman would supply exact Bguirea of capital andl interest, terms of mortgage and repayment, with much mh-utene**.. To buttress her position she would write letters to herself as coming from two or three different people. Once she was left by a charmed family alone in charge of the house while the inmates were away on a holiday. Their absence was brief, but long enough to ullow her to have a money-lender in and raise a large sum on the furniture. Her masterpiece was a bold imaginative feat. She knew the name of a widow lady, living in a country township, who l*td a son in the local bank. She knew t liename of a Wellington t_ade_muu who was » friend of tihe widow, and die thought out the rest. One day a lady, attired in a neat habit, rode up to the door of the tradesman's premises, and hlanded him a letter, and said excitedly: "It is important. I know wljot it is about." She barely restrained her impatience while he perused it. The letter purported to come From the widow, a_d to state that her son was involved in has bank accounts; that she couVi find all the missing money except £20, and would Mr kindly send that sum by bearer? Mr paid tlie £20 at once to the bearer, who rode gracefully away wit_ it. The letter was a forgery. Mr was so sensitive about the way _c had been taken, in that he never prosecuted for this offence. Her first punishment was a short committal to Caversham Industrial School in 1885. One of her feats earned her a month's imprisonment in 1886, and she served various sentences up to 1894 or 1895. Then came the committal to Mount Magdala, wher she remained five years, and for nearly two years after she left it nothing wafi known against her until tl)i_ latest lapse. The year 1903 marked a fre _i start. She was a fatalist, regarding her fjiling as a disease. "It is something in have kept good for seven years," she is reported to liave remarked, "ar.d what can you expect? It's in the blood.''