A MISTAKE THAT LED TO A CONVICTION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4254, 3 July 1895, Page 6

A MISTAKE THAT LED TO A CONVICTION.

A man, calling himself an engineer, and giving the name of Elville, was the other day condemned by the Paris Assize Court to eight years' hard labor, as the author or accomplice of the robbery of 300,000fr in money and scrip securities, of which the manufacturers of the Benedictine liqueur were the victims, in August, 1893. All the efforts of the police to obtain clues to the authors of the robbery in question had proved vain, when, in February, 1894, a person named Menessier presented himself at the luggage office of the North of France railway terminus with a ticket for a trunk left by* his brother-in-law. By mistake the wrong trunk was given to M. Menessier, who, on opening it, discoverd the error by the fact that it contained a large bundle of scrip shares of the Benedictine Company. He communicated with the police, who, after ascertaining that the shares formed part of the scrip securities stolen from the company, decided to arrest the person who should present himself to claim the trunk. On February 20 a welldressed man of very gentlemanly manners handed the ticket to the luggage office, and asked for the trunk. He was at once arrested. He said the trunk did not belong to him, and that he had been commissioned by' an English engineer named Menier to fetch it from the station. Menier was, he said, waiting at a neighboring cafe. Search was made, but no trace of Menier could be found. When brought before the examining magistrate, all this mysterious individual would say was that his name was Georges Elville, and that he was an engineer, and was born at Montreal. During the fourteen months he has been in prison Elville has steadily refused to say anything more, and in court he maintained the same reserve.