THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK AT MONTE CARLO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2045, 4 May 1893, Page 21

THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK AT MONTE CARLO.

Charles Wells was sentenced on March 14- to eight years' penal servitude. He was tried for a few of his rogueries. There were 23 counts, and, as Mr Abinger put it, about a quarter of a mile of indictment. Over £30,000 had been obtained from six persons alone who were concerned in the prosecution. Mr Wells was a great advertiser. In one year, he gave as many as 350 orders to Messrs Willing. They showed imagination of a high order. One of the promises ran thus:— " £100,000 positively paid in four months, plus large yearly income, on purchase of rharei in an important patent. Price, £1500." In another case he guaranteed a certain £200,000 tor an outlay of £1-000. Better still, to our thinking, was "a large income for 16 years for £100." He professed to have patents to sell or to offer as Becurity. He had nothing of^ the sort. He had ouly provisional protections. He provisionally protected everything— mustard, confectionery, sunshades, musical skipping ropes— and was, indeed, a sort of lord-protestor of the infinitely little of daily life. His pet article, however, was coal. With one exception, all the false pretences for which he was tried related to an alleged invention for the saving of steam fuel. He had ru ej eto the exhaustion of our coalfield?, aud it was hia wny of playing a patriotic part. Ti <> first advertisement that Miss Phillimore, one- of his victims, answered, offered a return of £1000 a day.. The first d - mand Mr Welis :na.< « in r s) onse was fora pr £5. Mi-;:- PhiHimoie sent, the £5. Then the senf Ci r .OO Tmn sV w-nt on. m.til it was cerU';i sht3 would h-.ve to pay £9000 for her thousand a-<W. 1.-. tLould be borne in instid that Miss Phil.imore «• the &i*.t-r of a Queen's Counsel, who, of com so, t>he m-ver cousubed, and was in that, and no douU ia other ways, within reach of the very be^t advice to be had, for love or money, in the law. It should also be borne in mind tbat, until Bhe saw Charles Wells iv the dock, she had never once cast eyes upon him in her whole life. When the had reached £9000 Miss Phillimore senna to have felt somewhat faint, but Mr Wells promptly mii»is**it:d to her appetite by offering her a partner-'. if., and a hundred thousand down. He sent her fifty thousand at once, in certain scraps of paper purporting to be shareß of »• Wells and Co."— Mr Wells in multiplex personality. The remainder, he said, would follow, in cash, in a few days. In the meantime he telegraphed to her for two thousand flown. He got it, and m a very short time,

three thousand more. He was not the man to take these things without an equivalent. He immediately increased her promised £100,000 by » promise of £50,000 more. When it was all over she was £18,860 to the bad, for which she had not so much as a postage stamp to show in value received. Mr Trench, of Limerick, was nearly a* foolish, but his loss comes a fraction short of £10,000. The Rev. Frederick Blake escaped for £750. In his defence, Wells tried to prove that some of his inventions were real. He could not satisfy Mr Justice Hawkins on this 'point, however, and, consequently the bank ajb Monte Carlo is safe so far a3 Wells is concerned for another eight years.