CAUGHT AT LAST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6291, 23 September 1898, Page 2

CAUGHT AT LAST.

MONSON HENTKNCED TO PENAL SERVITUDE. • HIS VICTIMS AND HIS VICES. [From Ot/b Cobkespondent.] LONDON, August 7. It has taken a long time to lay that extremely cuts individual, Mr Alfred James Monson, by the heels. But it is done at last, and on Saturday the suspected murderer of Cecil Ha-mborough was sentenced, with his confederate, Honour, to fire years' penal servitude. The Htory of the fraudß and forgeries which brought these worthies 60 grief must now be familiar to you. Reputable pursuits being at once impossible and distasteful to Monson, he became jackal to the money-lender Honour, described by his own counsel as " a foreigner, a Jew and a usurer." This engaging persons system was to lend money to dissipated and impecunious scamps on forged bills. ineir own signatures to "a bit of stiff were valueless, but if the young, prodigals cared to forge their parents names Honour would discount the bills. The rascal reckoned accurately enough that rather than indelibly smirch the family honour by prosecuting his offspring for forgery the average furious father would pay up. How correct was this view Porcival Norgate, a combined victim and culprit, who was allowed to turn Queen's evidence, showed. He had forged his father's name to bills not once, but twice, and on both occasions the Hon and Rev Mr Norgate had settled. It was after the second of these operations that Honour, Monson and Norgate, not caring to .risk a (third series of forged bills, elaborated the insurance fraud, which has turned out so unfortunately. I need not, I imagine, recapitulate particulars. „ The hist day of the trial at the Old Bailey was dull and lowering. The old Jew Honour looked ill and depressed, and shrank away seemingly almost in terror from his companion in the dock. Monson, on the . other hand, was well dressed, cool and alert As, however, the Judges summingup progressed signs of desperation appeared. He bit his lips again and again and rested his head upon his hand. When at the close of the trial and after only ten minutes consultation, the jury returned into ccurt, with a verdict of guilty, the faces of each of the accused assumed a death-like pallor. Monstn faced the Judge with a look of sullen defiance, evidently expecting little clemency after Mr Mathews, for the Crown, drew attention to the fact that this was by no means an isolated case against Honour and himself. The first-named stood in an almost dazed condition whilst being sentenced, and Metcalf made nervous movements with a quill pen across some blotting paper on the kdo-e of the dock. The moment the Judge pronounced the sentence of five years penal servitude against Honour and Monson, the latter, c.n whom the strain of anxiety was manifestly beginning to tell, tightly clenched 'his fist, uttered an audible curse, and then swung round on his heels, and, leaving his fellow convicts hurriedly, went down the stone steps leading from the dock with one of the warders behind him. Though Monson has departed into durance vile, we have by no means heard the last of him. It will scarcely be credited, but one of his final acts whilst free was to initiate divorce proceedings against his wife on the ground of her adultery with Cecil Hamborough. According to the affidavits Monson swears he only recently discovered proofs of Mrs Monson's guilt. Whilst in prison awaiting trial Monson wrote a disquisition en money-lending, - which: appears -in the current "Weekly Despatch.?-' .' s -.-;^>vr-:;--:,, :*••>; - .• -."■ Several >li6ndon;>.papers,; including ..-the Mail; and ♦'Tb/day'," are shedding light oh: the adventurous, career: of ;the notorious MonSofr. •■,-'? To-day^ "; disciosiires are linaerstood to emanate; froniMrs Monson, and had that admirable lady been legally capable of giving evidence against her spouse at the Hamborough trial, there cannot be much doubt as to the result. The " Daily Mail's " revelations chiefly concern Monson's moneylending operations. It says : — " As a moneylender's jackal and insurance agent's tout in the West End, Monson, by Ids own villainous methods, seems to have been able to live upon the fat of the land, and was to be seen not infrequently taking part in little dinner parties at smart restaurants, at anything up to £5 per he^d. Regularly employing his own agents to inspect the wills at Somerset House, Mcnson secured full and early informaVon of the names of persons entitled to reversions under such wills. This information seems to have been the man's chief stock-in-trade. Introducing himself, as Mr Wyvill to the owners of reversionary, interests, he would suggest that advances upon such interests could easily bo secured. One client would lead to another, and by degrees Monson got together a wonderful little crowd of the gild>d youths in a hurry to realise on their expectations. If Monson could get these young fellows to compromise themselves by some faux pas, his hold on them became all the stronger, and Ids shares of the advances he secured became all the larger. At first it was to Victor Honour that Monson took urn lucrative business— for the moneylender — represented by this school of youths with expectations. But Monson and Honour

fell out ; and then it was that Monson began to take his clients to Stanley Jones, the solicitor whose name has occurred so frequently in. the Callin-Birkin. case. It was not to the offices of the Life Interest and Reversionary Securities Corporation, Limited, in Piccadu.y — -the company of which Mr Stanley Jones :s described as the solicitor — Hint Monson took these clients, but to Stanley Jones's office in St James's Street an elegar.t suite of rooms, with commissionaires to open the doors on the instant. one of the sloctric bells gives warning, and with its walls covered with announcements of the sale of reversions — or " tombstones," as they are called. We have already recorded the fate of some of theto clients of Monson. Mr G. C. V. Sims, aged ;twe.nty-six, who fire, years ago possessed over £20,000, is now destitute, with a receiving order in bankruptcy against him ; Mr J. R, H. Riley aged twenty-two, wJu>. only a, few months ago came into many thousands^ is; aow practically penniless, Vitt a charge 9/ obtaining £3 on a worthless jcheque Hanging oyer Mm "• tho Marquis of Huntly-ond the Hon Johr Tyrwhitt, aged twenty-one; have" reeeiitly had their examinations in bankruptcy reported ; the Hon C. W. Blake, a.<*ed twentvtliree, is now in similar difficulties • Arthur Frank Bunbry aged twenty-one, late Second lieutenant 111 the Manchester Reo-i mo nt who is among the shareholders in the Life Interest and Reversionary Company, is awaiting sentence at the Old Bailey on charges of forgery; and the Earl of R oss l yn , whom Monson introduced to Honour, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to persuade him to ' forge his sisters signature, fa a lso in the Bankruptcy Court That Monson had done the greater part of the undoing of most of these and others is capable of 'easy proof Some time ago Monson went to the Isle of Man with a deed for £2000, which had been deposited with hun by one of his clients when he was at his Shaftesbury Avenue ofhee. TYrth this deed Monson-^2 Wyvill as he then called liimself— obtained an overdraft from a Manx bank. Mr Wvvill at about this time, happened to have' one of the several fires which have illuminated his career, and among the articles thrown out of the window were some which bore the name "A. J. Monson." Not til til had -the Manxmen realised tit they ha 3 Monson of Ardlamont in their midst. * Monson had a policy with "The Royal," which fully covered his loss by fire, but this policy Had been taken out in the name of Wyvill and the company declined to pay A j' Monson on Air Wyvill's policy/ The claim has remained unsettled to this day. How Monson has evaoed arrest all these 'years we do not know. But when at length, last autumn, it dawned upon him that he was under pohce observation he promptly proceeded to save himself, as he vainly hoped. • by selling his confederates. He was too fate, however in volunteering to help the police. Inanks to Norgate's earlier information, they could do without Monson's aid. But it mere yet remain any people concerning • whom Monson possesses damaging informa- I tarn, they are by way of being sold to tho ] Philistines, we should imagine. Monson 1 will not hesitate to incriminate them if ho J can thereby benefit himself at all." J