FORTUNE DISSIPATED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19808, 9 December 1938, Page 16

FORTUNE DISSIPATED

EARNED £IOO A WEEK ACROBAT BUNT TO GAOL LONDON, Oct. 28. Once Francis John Merritt earned £IOO a week—owned a big house, a farm, cars, and -10 suits. Recently—penniless and shabby—he was sent lc gaol l'or 18 months for thel't.

A few years ago Merritt was "or the halls'' as The Electric Eel. I-lis

salary was more than the Prime Minister’s. He spent it all —and a fortune of £30,000 left him just after the war --on champagne parties ami betting, or gave it away to charities and friends. He was a foundation subscriber tc the Variety Artists’ Benevolent Fund home for distressed artists at Twickenham. His name was put on a plaque of honour there. Then his riches went —and so did his friends. In the dock at the London Sessions yesterday lie said: "I have got a terrible record, but I am not a criminal by instinct. Drink is my downfall. I have gone through £80,000.” Living in One Room When he was arrested Merritt was living in one room in a back street near the Elephant and Castle, S.E. His only money was what lie got from the Public Assistance authorities. His clothes were so ragged that he went out only at night. In 1925 ho was sentenced to five* .years’ penal servitude for blackmail. When he was sentenced again in 19315—-to three years for stealing furs from a West End store —he told the chairman that lie had even offered his services to a circus for “his bare keep” to get work. Free again last July, he told reporters that he v/as “going straight.” He said then:—"Crime gets you nowhere. I don’t mean to servo another sentence. 1 have given up drink and gambling, i am finished with that life, and 1 will work for my keep if only they will give me a chance.” And to prove that his nerve and skill were as good as ever lie stood on his hands on the roof parapet of the Daily Express building, his heels overhanging a drop of more tlnu. 100 ft. ”1 used ot practice in my cell,” lie said. Now prison warders and fellow prisoners will again be "The Electric Eel’s” only audience.