A "SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT."

Temuka Leader, Issue 1998, 23 January 1890, Page 4

A "SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT."

Ernest Norton Eolfe, alias Ros* (or Rossiter) Eayinouds, pleaded K uiltv before Mr Justice Charles, at the Manchester Assizes, to uttering a forged bill of exchange for £2l well knowing it to be a forgery, and was sentenced to penal servitude His career (the Manchester correspondent of the Daily Telegraph writes) has been a remarkable one. " What his real name i* nobody except himself knows. His nationality is equally! obscure. He was first heard of in the United States, where his swindling j propensities led him to pass a period i of seclusion in Sing-Sing. Arriving 1 in this country about 1881, be, by his plausible manners, got himself introduced into the journalistic circles of London, was ejected for a short time an honorary member of the Savage Club, and also succeeded in getting an invitation to the inaugural dinner of the Press Club, held under the Presidency of Mr George Augustus &ak. In this way he got connected with a real (or pretended) syndicate ot provincial journals, which sent him out to Egypt during the . el-el-Keber campaign. Whether the salary he received from this syndicate was insufficient to support him is unknown: at all events, he supplemented it by extensive borrowings from various officers engaged in Egypt at the time, none of v ? hom have ever been repaid, ami he put himself under the same ■obligation to as many of his journal-is-»ic colleagues as believed in him. At the conclusion of the Soundan campaign he turned up in P-irin, representing himself as the accredited favorite of Tevrfik, stating that the Egyptian ruler was about to visit the French capital in >trict mufti for the purpose of raising a new loan, and had selected him t<superintend all the arrangements The proprietor of a fashionable hotel in the Eue Scribe fell under his wiles, and Eolfe, dressed as a Pasha, was installed in a magnificent suite of rooms which were to be used by hi: master. The landlord went to the expense of decorating the Chambers in Oriental style. 'J lie servants deputed to wait upon the Khedive (and his ambassador Eolfe, alias Eaymond) were clothed in Oriental costume, and practised the Eastern obeisance before Eolfe in ord r that they might be perfect in it when the successor of the Pharaohs arrived, and the chambers were filled with the perfume of Arabia. At length came the day fixed by Eolfe for the advent of the Khedive. He then told the proprietor, upon whom j he had enjoined the strictest 86crecy for State purpose of all his proceedings, that he was going to the station to meet his Highness, who unfortunately | had tetegraphed to him that the funds he had Bent on to Paris in anticipation of his arrival had been delayed en route, and requesting Eolfe to obtain some money for him somewhere at once. Eolfe in an off-handed way asked the landlord to oblige him with £IOO. The landlord obliged him; ivolfe left the hotel for the station—the only part of his siorv which was true; and from tHfc time until this neither the Ambassador, nor J£hedivf\ Dor the £IOO have been eeen at the hotel. Eolfe next transferred lia abilities to England. He secured an introduction to Mr Chamberlain, then went to an orchid merchant at St. *lbaoß, represented himself as Mr Austin Chamberlain, gave an order for orchids, paid for them with a forged cheque considerably over the amount o£ the bill, aud received the balance in cash. At Tunbridge Wells he was Mr James Greenwood, the " Amateur Casual," and got £2l on a forged bill of exchange. At Aberystwith he was Mr Bennett Burleigh, the war correspondent of the .Daily Telegraph, an.l swindled the proprietors of the loe-'il newspaper and a Leal Hotel of n sum of money and board and ludgings for some days. At Greenock, in Scotland, he was Mr Eathburn, master of Lord Brassey's yacht Sunbeam. Calling at a ship f chandler's there, he told tho owner that the yacht was lying at the ' tail of the bank,' and required some stores He gave a large order for provisions, ordered them to be sent down to the Sunbeam, and paid for them with e, cheque, purporting to be signed by Lord Brassey, for £llO, which was £3O over the amount of the bill. This £3O Eolf received in cash over the counter, and departed. The stores were duly sent down to the ' tail of the bank,' and had to be trundled back again, as no such craft as the Sunbeam had been heard of in the Clyde. This disappointment prepared the unfortunate shipchandler for the news which soon came to hand, that Lord Brassey repudiated the cheque as a forgery. In Ballymena, Rolfe was a secret member of the War Office, sent over to buy horses for the army. He purchased five steeds for £470, and paid for them with a pretended draft on the War Office for £525, and received the balance of £55 in cash. The draft was of course a delusion and a snare, so was the purchase of the horses. Many transactions of a similar kind were conducted by him in various parts of the three kingdoms. Last July he appeared in Blackpool, once more assuming the name of Mr Bennet Burleigh. Armed with a letter of introduction supposed to be from Mr j George Augustus Sala, but which had not the faintest resemb ance to Mr Snla'd handwriting, hf called upon Mr William Holland (wo.-36 triands m London will regret to hear that he is

at this moment lying dangerously ill), manager of the Winter Gardens. ' What! " cried Mr Holland, a ' letter from my old friend, Mr Sala? Of course I shall be only too glad to do anything for an acquaintance of his.' Eolfe's little request was to cash a bill of exchange for £2l. Fortunately for himself, Mr Holland did nothave the money, but he introduced ' Mr Benuet Burleigh ' to one of the directors of the Gardens, named Mr Harling, who, on the faith of the representations made to him by Eolfe, cashed the bill, which was soon after discovered to be a complete forgery. He next visited Boston, in Lincolnshire, where he was ' Mr Melton Prior,' the well-known artist. There he attempted to induce a hotelkeeper to cash another bill of exchange for £2l, but was unsuccessful. Intimation of his attempt came to the ears of the chief constable of Boston, who promptly arrested Eolfe. On him were found nearly 30 blank billß ot exchange, ready to be filled up, and several cheques with the forged signatures of journalists in London, ready to be ' uttered' as occasion arose. He was handed over to Mr Derham, chief constable at Blackpool, and it was to the fraud committedin that town that he pleaded guilty. Eolfe had a paramour in London, with whom he shared bis plunder, but after his arrest she went hack to America. When apprehended he was well-dressed, self-confident, and jaunty; when he appeared in the dock here he was dejected, depressed, dilapidated, unshaven, and very much thinner. He had not a single friend in court to sympathise with him, and looked as if he thoroughly realised the unpleasantness of his position, Mr Justice Charles said society must be protected from the unscrupulous depredations of persons like the prisoner, and he passed sentence of 10 years' penal servitude."