JABEZ SPENCER BALFOUR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10662, 24 May 1895, Page 2

JABEZ SPENCER BALFOUR.

With that brilliant financial genius, Jabez Spencer Balfour safe in the keeping of English gaolers, the time is opportune for briefly reviewing a career that has wrought misery iu thousands of families, aud has furnished one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of “hightoned” crime, Jabez had no sumptuous bringing into this vale of tears, for he was the son of a Chelsea marine-store dealer, whose proclivities were for temperance and religious work. His mother, Clara Balfour, was well known to tens of thousands of English men and women both as a writer aud s lecturer on temperance, and— experto crade~~ a very talented woman she was; though, according to,admissions that fell from her lips, the home was,not altogether a happy one. From the occupation of a marine store dealer, the father emerged into the full-blown life, of -a Government, officer, having secured a messeqgerßhip in connection with the House of Commons, and this position ho made use of to place the. hopeful Jabez with a firm of parliamentary agents. In politics Jabez adopted Radical views, and was in turn chosen to represent the Tam worth and Burnley constituencies; while he also became the first mayor of the borough of Croydon. But Jabez had other fish to fry. He was a politician and he was a “professing Christian,” though these things were to him only means to an end. At the age of twenty-five—that was in 1867 —the now notorious criminal had formed the Xtanda Allotment Company, from whence sprang other companies that afterwards became unpleasantly known as the Liberator or Balfour group. As a matter of fact, the Liberator was built on the ruins of variouo societies,with which the notorious Rev Dawson Burns and Mr Dibley had been intimately connected ; and these precious rascals became tho business associates of the astute Jabez, It was in June, 1868, that the Liberator Building Society commenced its existence. At its head was Jabez Spencer Balfour, no less j Jabez, the philanthropist, the Christian, whose name was as unassailable—particularly among Noncomformiat folk—as that of “ the old lady of Threadneedle Street,” and the shekels for investment flowed in like a mighty stream. In 1875, there came into being the Lands Allotment Company, the same good and gracious Jabez being the presiding genius; and then the “ little game ” was worked to a pretty tune. One society financed the other, and, as the thing developed, other . new companies were floated, to be in turn wildly financed; the hocusaed shareholders being meanwhile paid a regular if moderate dividend, • and- the depositors as regularly receiving their 4 per cent. This sort of thing went on merrily—for the Inner Circle—until September, 1892, when for the trusting invei- . tors there came The crash of ruin, and the loss of all.. The Liberator Building Society had failed, hopelessly failed, and the London and General Bank, in close sympathy therewith, had slanjmed the door against an agonised crowd. Horrors accumulated. Jabez had fled, no one knew whither; but everyone knew that his flight meant beggary in scores upon scores of erstwhile happy homes; and the curses that followed him must have been more than enough to sink the goodliest ship that ever sailed. Jabez, the arch-fiend, had, for the time at least, made himself safe, by flight. One of the directors tried to make a violent ending to his misspent existence, but—phall we say un-fortunately-failed to do so. Events crowded thick and fast upon each other’s heels. Hobbs and Newman, the partners in a firm of builders, who had been partners in crime with Jabez, were arrested. They had bled the investors to tbe tune of mors than two millions sterling, and they were brought to trial and inadequately sentenced—Newman to five years’ and Hobbs to twelveyears' penalservitudo; andasolioitornamed Wright, whoalso had taken an active part in the complicated swindles, was sentenced to twelvo years. Intermingled with the systematic frauds already indicated was the forged will case of the Benham brothers, who had operated upon tho London and General Bank to the tune of .847,000, and who also were consigned to durance vile. Jabez had fled, and for the time being could Put his thumb unto his nose, And spread liis Angers out, as did the. ancient seneschal, of whom - the author of “The Ingoldsby Legends” tells ns. In January, 1893, a receiving order had been issued against Jabez Spencer Balfour’s estate, and before that, month had closed a warrant for his arrest was issued. But it is one thing to issue a warrant and another to execute it. Jabez had gone, no man knew whither, but what men did know was that he somehow Tailed to be present at a bankruptcy meeting in which ho" was intimately concerned. Weeks passed by, and then there were rumours in London—whereat ruined men gnashed their teeth—that Saint Jabez had been translated to the Argentine, in which Republic he was sporting a plumage white as the wings of a dove, with feather* of gold. Oddly enough, there were those among the bitten ones who wanted to have a retaliatory bite. They wanted—badly wanted—to have Jabez Spencer Balfour in their midst just once more. “On one occasion,” sayS a newspaper report of the' period, “he was nearly caught. Tiring, perhaps, of his stay at Buenos Ayres, he had arranged to visit Monte Video, and had taken a ticket for the steamer. The British Consul was apprised oi his intention, and detectives were awaiting the arrival of the steamer at- . the Uruguayan capital to arrest the £ngitive. At the last moment, however, some friend warned Balfour, of the risk he ran. and tho contemplated pleasure trip abandoned.” Our readers know the rests ' how Jabez dodged the detectives and theft dodged him; how in the end diplomacy.: triumphed, and the unmitigated scoundrel was eventually handed over to British authority. Let us hope that in bis case a special effort will be made to “ make the punishment fit the crime,’’ in which event the sentence will be historic. To show tho magnitude of the swindles, it was pointed out that Jabez and his 001-‘ leagues divided amongst them, in directors’ fees alone, no less than £178,564;! and the ruin involved to the unhappyj shareholders and depositors may be at a glance from the subjoined figures ‘ Liberator— Shareholders £1,651,055 ! Depositors 1,652,292 . Lands Allotment Company, . , Subscribed capital ... 766,210 House and Lands Trust— I Shareholders £72,145 ■ - Depositors 1,531,345 > Building Securities Company, ' Subscribed capital ... 263,735 Hobbs and Co., subscribed, _ capital , 61,168 . Grand total...