AN IMPOSTOR IMPRISONED

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4882, 6 February 1903, Page 5

AN IMPOSTOR IMPRISON ED

ADVENTURES OP AN EX-NEW ZEALANDER. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, December 19. “Captain C. W. P. Wallis, D.S.Q., V.&., R.N.Z.A." alias Captain Sutcliffe, alias Captain Bruce Wilson, will not be in a position to yield to matrimonial temptations for some considerable time to come. At the Old Bailey last Monday be pleaded ■guilty to the charges of fraud whereof I have airemiy furnished full particulars, and was sentenced to live years’ penal servitude —not by any means too severe a punishment for a creature who has deliberately wrecked the lives of at least two decent girls, to say nothing of fleecing scores of people. Wallis’s antecedents remain "wrop in mistry” so far as his career prior to 1898, is concerned, when he married Annie Cartwright as Captain Sutcliffe, R.N. With her be lived eleven months, and squandered .£IOOO belonging to her, the last “fiver’’ of that amount beingextracted from the unhappy woman literally at the point of a pistol. Having bled his wife to her last penny Wallis deserted her, went to Oxford, incurred debts there, and actually became engaged to a lady. But Nemesis was on his track, in tho shape of his sis-ter-in-law, and the day before the wedding “Captain Bruce Wilson’’ decamped. He sought refuge from pursuit by trying to enlist in the Life Guards, but that Corps was kept free from Wallis’s contamination by reason of his being rejected as medically unfit. However, ho contrived to borrow some money, and, repairing to Tunbridge Wells, contrived to keep up appearances sufficiency well to bo able to get into most amicable relations with the young and charming (laughter of a certain wealthy resident. Finally ho proposed marriage, but some of Wallises New Zealand tales roused parental suspicion, and inquiries produced results which caused Waliia to bo “warned off.” Frustrated in his purpose to wed onca more. Wallis joined the Scots Guards. But the monotony of barrack life soon became unendurable to the slim froe-beot-er, and he deserted. To escape arrest ho joined tbo Yeomanry and actually went to South Africa, only, however, to be returned shortly with one of those noble batches of “inefficieuts” of which K of K complained so bitterly. With a brazenness almost admirable, he forthwith assumed the title of “Captain,” and. for aI period fed on the fat of the land a« the guest of a gentleman -who was bubbling over with patriotism and gratitude to our gallant colonial soldiers. During these halcyon days Wallis gave himself another step in rank, and, posing as a retired Major with a “D. 5.0.," proposed marriage to another lady, but she waa prudent, and Wallis, being unable to quite satisfy her curiosity, “vamoosed.” Descending to a mere captaincy once more but retaining the “D. 5.0.” adding thereto "V.S., R.N.Z.A.," ho appears to have worked the south coast watering places for a brief period, and then, returning to London, ingratiated himself with Miss Clutterbuck, whom he married in May last. Since then he bad been living on his “motber-in-law” and his wits till bis arrest. Among tho papers found upon the prisoner when searched was a letter purporting to be written by Mr Seddon, but which was most certainly written to Wallis by Wallis himself, and was couched in most familiar terms. Before sentence was passed upon him, Wallis read a long rigmarole designed to mitigate his sentence and pleaded for mercy because he had been led away by drink and bad. company. The Recorder, however, intimated that he could not discover any mitigating circumstances in tho case. Wallis, he said, had been deliberately living by fraud and nothing else for years. For bigamy be would go to penal servitude for five years, and for fraud to twelve months’ hard labour, the sentences to run concurrently.