BID WELL, THE FORGER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9142, 25 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

BID WELL, THE FORGER.

the man' WHO SWINDLED the BANK OF ENGLAND TELLS HIS STORY.

The Boston Globe says -.—Among the many people visiting this city to attend the meetings of the National Prison Association there is probably no one who can tell a more interesting story of his life than George Bidwell. In 1873 the Bank of England was victimised by a gigantic swindle to the amount of about £1,000,000. George Bidwell was the head and front of the gang of four who perpetrated this enormous fraud upon the financial Gibraltar of the world, and, of course, his name was telegraphed to the four corners of the earth. He was arrested with his accomplices, tried, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. He served fourteen years in prison, and last year he was free on a ticket-of-leave, and came to this, In? native country, where he has since reside with his family at East Hartford Conn. During this one year of freedom he has been engaged almost night anc av in writing an account of his life and im - prisonment, with the object of not • gaining an honest means of subsistence therebv, but also hoping " to convince the people" of his native land of his own reformation and to offer a timely warning to any voung business men or those occupying positions of trust." This work will soon be upon the market, and is intended not as " a mere record of crime,' as he expresses it, or a contribution to flash literature for the edification of the vicious, but is intended for honest people and as an enduring injunction for them to remain such. . Thinking that a personal talk with Mr. Bidwell would be interesting to its readers, the Globe sent a man last night to look him up. He was found at the othce of his publishers, William E. Smythe and Co., on Tremont Place. Mr. Bidwell hud been out during the day with some members of the Prison Association, engaged in looking over some prisons in this vicinity. His health, which was completely broken down during his lone imprisonment, has improved somewhat during his freedom, but he was yesterday seized with a fainting fit which made him very weak and tired last night. He is a man approaching sixty years of ao-e, with a strong and attractive face, His head is quite thickly sprinkled with grey hairs, and has a suspicion of thinness on the top. He wears a closely-cropped black moustache. A high forehead, prominent features, and a massive jaw and chin co to make up a decidedly interesting face, and one which is all the more interesting when one thinks that behind that browthrobs the brain that planned what is probably the most mammoth fraud in the annals of crime. When one looks at the man as he is now, and at his picture taken in Paris in 1872, before the inception of the fraud which made him famous, the terrible change wrought in him gives an inkling of the mental and bodily torment he was compelled to undergo during his fourteen years *nside the prison walls. For five years he jaw neither sun, moon, nor but was .u solitary confinement, and for six months ,vore sixteen-pound chains for an attempt to escape. ~ But it will be better to let Mr. Bidwell tell his story in his own words : —_ "I was born in Bloomfield, N. Y, and came of an old Puritan family whose tree can be traced back to the Doomsday Book, compiled by order of William the Conqueror. My family was strictly, almost fanatically, religious, looking upon the most innocent games as instruments of Satan. After a youth of varying ups and downs, I got well established in business, and married. Getting into bad company, I was instrumental 0 in some ' crooked' transaction, and was finally swindled by my own partner. After this I increased my ventures, and had many narrow escapes and thrilling adventures. '• After a long course of fraud and crime in this country, I found myself in England with three accomplices, and by accident we discovered an unguarded loophole in the business transactions of the Bank of England, and I concocted a scheme to take advantage of this to swindle them to the j best of our ability. It ou see, this bank was in the habit of receiving bills of exchange in deposit on account without verifying either the signatures or the accep- j tances, and stowing them away till they became due. We took advantage of an account we had opened under an assumed name with the bank some time previous, got a lot of bills of exchange printed on counterfeit plates, and flooded the Bank of England with these bills from all over the world, profusely signed _ and accepted, and the bank unhesitatingly cashed them, and pur. the proceeds to our credit. I kept no account of the sums we got out of them, but at the trial they claimed that their loss was about £1,000,000. All went well until we were dbout to make the last move and leave the country, when, unfortunately, I neglected 'o date the acceptance of two of the fraudulent bills. These were sent to the icceptors for the omission to be supplied, md were, of course, at once pronounced fraudulent. "Immediately the whole police and detective force was put on the track. The wires flashed a reward for our capture to all parts of the kingdom, and every seaport was guarded to prevent our escape. I was the last one captured. I was chased through England, Ireland, and Scotland for days, twisting and turning like a hunted fox, and I threw the detectives off the track again and again by shrewd devices. After some weeks, I was captured in Edinburgh, and found the bracelets on my wrists. "After the trial, in which the bank officials attempted to show that the whole affair was the result ot a plot carefully conceived and matured for a year or more, we were sentenced for life, and, after serving fourteen years' time, I am now a free man, through the exertions of people in this country and England, while my three confederates are still in confinement Austin, my brother, at Chatham; Edwin Hills at Portsmouth, and George McDonald at Portland. My prison life was spent at Newgate, Pentonville, Dartmoor, Woking, and Millbank. " On my return to this country, I was received at New York by an officer, who arrested me, but was obliged to release me by order of the court. Bank of England people now pay detectives to dog my footsteps in this country, and my every movement is telegraphed to London. However, I am perfectly safe in this country , and am determined now, at my age, to lead an j honest life." _ I Mr. Bidwell thus gives in a few words I the story of a career which probably cannot be equalled. He is a man of much native ability, speaks French arid German as well as English, and has a translating knowledge of Italian, Spanish, and Latin, the latter having been acquired from an old, dog-eared Latin grammar obtained by him while in Dartmoor Prison. He will remain in this city, till the close of the present convention, which he will address upon the inside of English prison life. Ex-President Hayes and many prominent people in this country have taken much interest in him, and it is expected that his address to the association will be very instructive.