TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 11725, 7 April 1902, Page 7

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[From Our Special Correspondent.]

LONDON. February 21. OGUE AND FOOL. -THE LIVERPOOL BANK FRAUDS.

TlMi prisoners implicated in the groat fraud upon the Bank of Liverpool, by which that institution lost close upon fiuO.OW before the management became aware ot tlio "leakage," appeared in the. O.d Bouey dock last Monday before Mr Justice bigham They were Thomas Peterson Goudie ftwenty-nine, clerk), Thomas Francis Kelly (thirty-four, bookmaker). William Haines Stiles' (fortv-thrce, '-agent"), and Richard Bnrge (thir'tv-five, " agent " in some things, but in pugilistic matters usually a principal). The charge sheet wa-s a portentous array of indictments, forming a sort of mathematical problem, working out the possible combinations of four prisoners taken in sots of three. Thus three prisoners were charged with conspiring to defraud the Bank of Liverpool of various specified sums of money. Another combination of ihree prisoners'were aesnsed of actually obtaining these sums by false pretences, and so on. Tho last indictment accused Burge ot conspiring with Laurie Marks.and others to defravd his co-prisoner Goudie. Counsel for prosecution and prosecuted were many and imposing. -Mr F. C. Smith had come from Liverpool to defend Goudie. For Burge, Mr Horace Avory. K.C., and__ Mr Biron appeared. Mr Rufus Isaacs, K.C, and Mr Lambert were for Kelly, and Stiles was represented by Mr Marshall Hail, K.C. On the prosecution side wero Mr Gill, iv.C. and Mr Charles Mathews, K.C. A large crowd filled the public portions of the court anxious to hear the full details of how £170.000 could be got out of a bank without that bank blowing it. When the prisoners were willed upon to plead it was soon seen that Goudie had turned King's evidence. He pleaded guilty to every count in the indictment against him, but tha other men pleaded " Not guilty." no matter the offence alleged or the combination in which they appeared. The case against Goudie and Burge was taken first, and Mr Gill gave an outline of the storv of the frauds. He, described how ' the account of Mr Hudson (" Hudson Soap") was tampered with, and how cheques supposed to be signed by him were uttered. Over £90.000 of'the money thus obtained passed out of the possession of the clerk primarily responsible for the fraud and into that of "three other men—Burge.. Mances, and Marks, the two latter being still at large. The money w?s divided in the following proportions : Burge. £38,500 ; Mances, £56,000; Marks. £15,000. MiGill explained how all the false cheques were destroyed by Goudie instead of being put on the" file. ' Passing from Goudie to Burse. Mr Gill said that the latter, in 1900". had come to the, end of hi- financial resources. Mances and Laurie. Marks were also in pecuniary straits. The trio heard, Mr Gill suggested, that cheques were being got from a young bank dirk, and determined to sliare the spoil. Marks «uul Mances ran a.way when Goudie was arrested. The reason why Burge. did not do so. said Mr Gill, was tho tact, that he thought he wa-s safe, because- the cheques obtained from Goudie came through Marks. Mr Gill proceeded to give an account of how Burge and Mances travelled by night to Liverpool, with the. intention of making Gondie's acquaintance. This they succeeded in doing by Mances asking him for an address in the street, and then forcing a conversation. A? an instance of Gondie's exedulitv and foolishness, Mr Gill cited the fact that the clerk believed that a man in the street could in+rodnco him to a bookmaker who would lay the odds against a horse to such a large sunt as £5,000 an hour before the race. "The man whom Burge found to do this was Marks, who just ptcviouslv had been trying to raise £IOO to carry'him along. Mr Gill contended that Burge actually "helped to conduct many of the operations between Goudie and Mirks. Through the various racing transactions. Mr Gill admitted, Btirgo kept himself in the background, but counsel quoted telegrams in" Burge's handwriting to Goudie, signed Marks, and gave particulars of the gradual swelling of Burge's hanking account. Mr (Jill said there was little doubt that Marks had committed suicide by jumping from a trans-Channel steamboat. andMances had got clear away. The kit tor left £35,000 behind him, and Marks £19,000. Mr Gill's explanation of Marks's connection with the affair was that. Itcing hard up, lie allowed Mances or Burge. to open telegrams that came to his office If these telegrams happened to relate to ordinary bets they were handed to Mr Mark-'s clerk, but if they came from " Scott " alias Gondie. well, Bnrge- and Mances attended to thorn. He then called Xorris Woolgar, clerk to the supposed late Mi Laurie' Marks, who deposed that Marks's hookmaking business was an ordinary- one, most of the- bete averaging £1 in value. Witness bad been Clerk ahou*six weeks when Marks introduced Mances a.nd Burge and told witness to allow them i<> open telegrams. None, of Goudie's bets were entered in the betting books. One of the horses that Goudie wired to back for £IO,OOO at 5 to 2, said witness, won his race, which was timed for 1.30. Goudie should, as a result, have received £25,000, but a telegram from "Marks" was sent at 1.55 saying that "Marks" was not doing any more business that day. After evidence relating to the visit of Burge. and Mances to Liverpool in search of tloudie, a handwriting expert discussed the handwritings of Burge, Goudie, Mances, Marks, etc., with special reference to the betting telegrams, and said that filename of Marks on telegrams was in Mances's and Burge's handwriting.

Trie next witne&s of importance was i'loudie himself, whose testimony makes him ant to be a queer compound of knave and fool. He was .:ute enough to rob the bank of big sums ic swift succession without raiding suspicion, but, bless you, he was in the ways of the world, as innocent as a seven-year-old boy, and wlur. he fell among "gentlemen" of the turf he was as a new-fledged pigeon among trained falcons.

In the witness box Goudie was very selfpossessed, and gave his evidence very clearly. His testimony, though not actually implicating Burge, certainly gave strong color to the theory of the prosecution that the redoubtable pugilist was fully aware of Goudie's source of finance, and with Mances as hi* stalking horse set to Avork to share the chief culprit's plunder. Goudie detailed fully the method by which Mances introduced himself to him, and '" persuaded" him to open a betting account with " Marks and Co." It was a simple plan, indeed. Armed with a knowledge of Goudie's position and his betting transactions, picked up from Kelly and others, Mances repaired to Liverpool, waylaid Goudie in the street, and after asking him a simple question as to the whereabouts of a certain stationer's shop, put the spot touching q^uery: '* You go in for racing?" Goudie tried to pass off the matter with a haughty " I thipk you are making a mistake," but Mances thought not, and mentioned the name of Kelly, spoke of having seen Goodie (whom he addressed as " Scott") at Doncaster and elsewhere with Kelly and bis partner "Stripes." Goudie persisted in denying his identity with the individual of whom Mances spoke, but the latter wouldn't be choked off, and after mentioning that he knew his vis-a-vis to be a. clerk in the Bank of Liverpool, able to command monev, thoroughly scared the already alarmed (Wdie by the significant remark: "I'm not a detective." That derided Goudie to give Mances the interview he demanded, and a few hours later the two were closeted at the Victoria Hotel diseu»iing racing. The result was an introduction from M&nces to "Marks and C 0.," and ▼ery soon " C. P. Scott" was 'doing a very large business with this " wealthy firm of turf accountants," who were prepared to take commissions up to £5,000 to back any liorse an hour before the race! Goudie first sent a wire ininstructing "Marks and Co." to back a horse called Hegera for £5,000. It didn't win, and " C. P. Scott" paid with a Hudson cheque. Bad luck pursued the punter, and cheques for £9,000, £7,000, £30,000, and £31,000 followed in swift succession in the offices of " Marks and Go." at Adelphi tpmofc Only once did Goudie hit the "oaik, and that was whoa he backed a horse

called Sansom for £IO,OOO. As that animal won at 5 to 2 against, Goudie should have cleared £25,000, but a few minutes after ihe tape- had told him of his good luck he received from London a wire to the effect that Mr Marks was too ill to do business, and in consequence his commission had not been worked! This information made Goudie " sick" also, and led to recriminations. Shortly after this tha crash* came. An 'accountant was looking through the books, and could not find a mention of one of the cheques for £9,000 purporting to be siguc.d hy Mr Hudson, '(.his was one of the cheques Goudie had ticked °ff hi * n ? clearing book as if it had been passed in tlie ledger. The accountant aaid it was very curious it was not in the account. Goudie replied that it must have gone to the wrong man. A messenger was then sent round the offico to find the cheque, and during the accountant's absence Goudie marked £9,000 into someone else's account, and left the book o;»«n to dry. The messenger returned, and said he could not find the cheque, and Goudie then told the accountant he had taken it from a bundle, and had laid it on a certain desk, from which it had disappeared. The porter might be able to throw some light on its disappearance. The porter, however, hadn't seen such a cheque, and its " mysterious disappearance " (as Goudie called it) troubled the accountant, who was not even satisiiod when shown the ledger entry which Goudie had made. He was still inquiring into the matter when Goudie "went out to lunch." He. didn't return, and his absence led to a thorough overhauling of his books, with the result you know.

Goudio's cross-axamination did not elicit any new facts, but among the witnesses called later was Inspector Freest, who throw some additional light on the character of the man Mances by producing a few items from ilit. "wtrdroba" that person left behind at Charing Cross Hotel when he tied the country. They included a select assortment of curd-sharping instruments, comprising "hold ours," a card-marking machine, and an intricate apparatus of strings with a prism, bv means of which the cards in a person's hand could be seen by a "watcher" in another room, who could so manipulate the strings laid under the carpet that the other players might learn the cards held be the fourth individual. "On the morrow Richard Burge. ex-light weight champion of the world, took nis stand in the witness box, not as one win sousht to save his skin by splitting on others, but as an injured innocent determined to vindicate his character. His pose a-, such was not inspiring, though his answers to questions were at first surprisingly "pat." and he contrived at times to give to his voice a very passable semblance to what the novelists call " the ring of honest indignation." However, his initial answers, were turned against him later on in a most surprising fashion. He had never been in want of money during his pugilistic career, yet immediately preceding the squeezing of Goudie his bank balance had been reduced to nil, and he owed hundreds. At the same time he, having had a lucky day on the turf, blithely advanced Marks £250 out of £3OO on a mere verbal agreement that he was to take one-half of the future profits of that worthy's betting business. This was the sort of thing he asked an intelligent jury to believe, but what told most strongly' against him was tha telegrams to "Scott." These were in Burge s handwriting; that fact he made no attempt to deny, but he asked the Court to credit the statement that he only wrote them a'. Marks's dictation. Worse, than all, in one particular instance, Burge desired the jury to believe, that Marks had walked the best part of a mile from his office to get Dick Burge to write out, a telegram to " Scott," Burge being at that time enjoying the delights of a Turkish bath I Mr Avory made an eloquent speech on behalf of Burge, but his specious pleading, which occupied nearly an hour, had so much effect on the jury that it took them less than five minutes to arrive at the conclusion that their duty was to find him guilty on aii counts of the indictment. One cannot but, feel they were justified in doing so, for though Purge professsed to he utterly ignorant of Goudie alias Scott, whom he knew only as a "rich man in Liverpool" keen on lietting, the prosecution's theory thai lie knew a« much about Goudie as Mances, and was in fact the prime mover in the plot by which the forger's plunder passed into the hands of the London ganjj was established by ~ circumstantial evidence which carried conviction. His counsel, of course, abused the turncoat Goudie freely, tried hard to minimise the effect, of that poor rogue-fool's unvarnished tale, and made, much of the fact that Burge had not attempted to flee the country when the frauds on the Bank were first discovered. As a. matter of fact, Purge had no lime, to "cleur out" unless, 'like Mances. he had gone without \he proceeds of his plundering, and no doubt as he hod carefully kept in the background during the rooking of Goudie, he fondly imagined that he would cither escape observation or that at the worst be able to persuade a jury that he wax an innocent participator in the plunder. He might have done so but for the inconvenient habit of the Post Office in keeping for a time the original:; of all telegrams passing through their wires. The case camf-. to an end very suddenlr yesterday, for Kelly and Stiles, the first discoverers of Goudie the Innocent, after a consultation with their counsel, decided to plead guilty lo the conspiracy count of the indictment.

Mr Gill, referring to the careers of Stiles and Kelly, stated how they, in the company of " Stripes," met Cloudie in a railway train, ami invited him to join in a game of cards. They fonnd him to lie a young man with an extraordinary capacity for believing any kind of story told him. and invited him to join them at Hr.vst Park on the following day, and proceeded to go through the form of what is known on the racecourse as " telling the title.' Goudie was £230 to the bad on the day s racing. From this point both prisoners realised they had found a pearl-white " mug," and proceeded to fleece him unmercifully, Stiles getting £35,732 and Kelly £39,615' in the course of a few week.;. Thoir method w.us the same throughout. Stiles was supposed to be a nan of means, who was trusting Kelly, and although Goudie lost money, his "friend" Stilerlost twice as much. For instance, if Goudie lost- £5,000 on a race, Stiles lost. £IO,OOO. Goudie looked upon Kelly and Stiles its being quite distinct, although they were acting in coalition. Having won £40,000, Goudie was taken to the races the next day. He. desired to back a- horse in the first'race, but he was told £IO,OCO had been placed on another horee for him, which horse was left at the post. On another occasion he .backed a winner for £IO,OOO. but subsequently received a wire stating that Stiles had placed £IO,OOO for him on another horse, which was left at the post. That balanced Goudie's winnings. Mr Gill said that though Kelly and Stiles were guilty of a very bad conspiracy, he considered their case was on a, different plane to that of Burge. Questions were asked hy the Judge with a view to discovering the actual amounts which the various prisoners would be able t:> restore to the Bank. Mr Gill could not state the exact amounts which the police had succeeded in laying an embargo on, nor could the accused's counsel give definite information as to the amounts their client and their clients' friends, who had been, so to speak, iHHieficiiilly interested in tht Htecing of Goudie, would be able to refund. Mr Justice Bigham. deferred passing sentence till these matters were settled —a wise sttp, seeing that at least two of the prisoners would blithely do five years or so if thev could reckon on a comfortable competence from their roguery when thev came out. As it is they will doubtless make every effort to.lighten their sentence by handing over what is left of their illgotton gains.