THEIR FIRST STEPS IN CRIME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8309, 6 May 1905, Page 2

THEIR FIRST STEPS IN CRIME.

Trivial laci4e_vtß Started -toy Orl_a___al_, Many of thp most notorious wrong* doers have, if their own impressions are to be relied on, been tempted to launch into crime by the most accidental oirctjmstances. " Jim the Penman," the great forger whose forgeries created a panic among London bankers for several years, and who was at last brought to justice by the confessions of two .of his accomplices, when he was condemned to penal servitude for life> said that tho idea of forgery never«oc- . curred to • him till it was suggested by the chance remark of a oasual acquaintance whom he met in a London restaurant where he was dining. 'The, stranger chanced to allude to a. fdTgery that had been committed, says the London "Answers," and remarked how clever a penman' must be to .be able to imitate a signature bo closely that .* skilled bank clerk could not distinguish the forgery from the real one. Jim thought it would be easy, and pen, ink and paper were brought for him tor try his hand at imitating the stranger's signature. The result was so wonderful that the stranger remarked : "You possess a dangerous gift, sir, A man might be tempted with it to do much at a pinch." Till that moment, "Jim the Penman" — then James Saward-., the barrister, desperately in want of money— deolared he had never thought of forgery as a means of livelihood. The words rang in his ears as a revelation . of bow he might gai-v thousands. He became the cleverest forger of. modern times. A man does not become a coiner all at once. It requires long, laborious arid constant practice to acquire the proficiency to turn 1 put base money which wiU. pass unde'teoted from hand to hand. Bui the most casual chance has led men to adopt coining as a means of preying on their fellows. \. WOODSTOCK, THE COENEB, samples of whose marvellous work are tp be seen in the Black Museum at Scotland Yard, was, as a young fellow, a tailor's assistant- One Saturday afternoon he was in a public house in the south of London with the girl to whom he was engaged. TJponher leaving, a stranger remarked to Woodstock how pretty 6he was, and jokingly asked when the wedding was to be. Woodstock lamented that there was^ not muoh chance of that happening for a long time. His meagre wages forbade the hope. The stranger was Draker, a coiner, and he. hinted that if Woodstock—such - a nice faced, respectphle[ooking f ejlow was poor it was his own fault- ' Draker had heaps of bad money he Wanted passed. Woodstock was tempted, and, after a struggle with himself, poneented to take some of the coins. He found them so defective, however, that they were difficult to pass, and he Draker' s work so severely that Draker invited him to " see if he could do better himself," and he would teach him all he knew. Woodstock Wsilr -surpassed his master. He had a Wonderful gift for delicate manual Work and a brain to discover new method*. His "den," when he was at last run down by Inspector Fox, waa found fitted with all the latest scientific machines that could be applied to counterfeit coining. In the famous case of Martin Guerre, vthe launching of a criminal course was the result of an extraordinary chance and a sudden resolve. Martin Guerre Was a soldier; and was mortally woundfed in a skirmish in the north of France. Among his comrades was a man remarkably like him, with whom Guerre had contracted a great friendship. The two used to be always together, and ENJOYED THE JOKE OF THBH. STRANGE J__-SEMBJ-j-N'CE. Guerre's double was with him when he was dying, and Guerre, with his last breath, begged his comrade to carry some little. trinkets he had to his wife at home. The double assented, and proceeded to fulfil his promise faithfully. When he arrived at tho village on his mission he learned that Guerre's Wife had, during her husband's absence J In the war, come into some little property through the death ef a relation. He began to envy .Martin Guerre's lot Jf he had' lived. 'When the villagers j law him ; -they began to exclairii : " Here's Martin Guerre!" By the time | be arrived -at" the 'cottage door he had decided to act Martin's part, provided j the dead man's wife was deceived by j bis similarity, to" her husband. , She j was, and the impostor took Martin ; Guerre's place. The wife only disjpovored the truth some twelve months later by 'the absence from the impostor's aria of a scar which Martin, had borne. Alice Grey, the gnj> impostor, who. 'used to make a livelihood by accusing men of robbing her, and inciting all the spectators, the police, the bar and ipeople -in court to make subscriptions Tor her, while by her false accusations innocent persons were brarided as thieves and condemned to gaol, said that it was a pure accident which launched her on her horrible career, j&he really lost her purse one day at a railway station, and burst into tearon discovering her loss. Alice Grey was so pretty, and: sobbed so nicely that a score of people were at once anxious to assist her. To her profound astonishment, she discovered 'her loss made up to her over arid over again by charitable spectators. / ; - The incident suggested a much easier fray of making a living than by domestic service, and Alice Grey, a few days later, was weeping on another railway station platform. Passers-by asked the cause, and were told that she had had her purse snatched from her hand by a . man whom she described.

THKBE WAS A -LITE AND CRT

raised at once, and an unfortunate wretch was found exactly . answering Alice Grey's description/ Almost unthinkingly, Alice Grey accused him. . "Oh, you hard hear^d creature, to . rob a poor innocent girl of her hard o-rned savings," she sobbed. The man h*d not a good character, and although ne loudty protested his innocence and Sothing was found on him to connect im with tbe robbery he was haled kway, and, Alice Grey foUnd that she had gene so far that she could hardly now draw back. When the man was tried and found guilty and condemned to four months' imprisonment a collection was made in court for Alice Grey, md the whole thing "paid so well " that she became from that time a professional accuser of unfortunate people. The first step in crime in the case of Soudie, the Liverpool bank clerk, who tabbed his bank of something like £170,000, was "manipulating" the books so as to hide his taking £40 to back a horse that was, the yotfng fool thought, "bound to win." . From the winnings he would replace tbe "bor-i

rowed money," while retaining a handsome sum himself. The horse, of course, lost; but the defalcation remained undiscovered, and Goudie was tempted to repeat it for a larger amount. The result everyone knows— fourteen years penal servitude. Robson, who defrauded the Crystal Palace Company of £27,000, took a : small amount first for a stock exohange gamble. He lost, and went on. Leopold Redpath, who in 1857 was sentenced to penal servitude for life for defrauding the Great Northern Railway Company of close upon £200,000, declared that the first forgery he committed was to obtain money to assist some poor people in great distress. The statement might be regarded with a good deal ot suspicion if his careeoTdid not disclose the fact that whiieV Redpath was CXJM__r_TING THE JtO-T -BATTY AND CAI.CT3I.ATEi) FRAUDS he was at the same time scattering the money he obtained ampng various charities and privately assisting sccres cf persons in distressed circumstances. When he was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court there were persons in court who burst into tears. They were persons whom he had befriended. Harry Benson, the insligatpr of the great turf frauds and of numberless other swindles ; the Bid wells, the great forgers; and Lefroy, the murderer of Mr Gold on the Brighton line, are 'types of oriminals who seem to have i been such by some queer moral perver* j sity born in them. In each of them | there was a gradual development of the terrible "criminal instinct," showing j itself in their earliest mingling with others— in the school and playground, in their very first companionships. No one can point to any particular event in their lives as the first introduction tp criminal ccurses. It seemed innate, arid showed itself in the prettiest trick^ cry in childish intercourse. It has-been noticed that the most notorious criminals in various spheres of crime are recruited f rom # the ranks of pereons engaged in special occupations and professions. The locksmith, safemaking and carpentering trades have supplied the most accomplished burglars; engraving has been responsible for niost of the great ban knpte manufacturers ; the most celebrated forgers have come from the legal profession, and the professional murderers have generally had some medical trainBut the professional, poisoner is a man accustomed to carrying the burden of ghastly secrets, and rarely does he do more than confess the justice of his sentence and acknowledge the/last crime which sent him to the gallows His lips are sealed as to previous pffenoes, and no one knows now the awful first step was taken. A prison chaplain: in one of our largest convict establishments once remarked to me that he was appalled by the continual lament of the criminals he found in that place of terror over "just one little thing." The /'Uttle thing" was the first step which had launched them on the career of wrongdoing which had brought them there.