Chapter 3

Lesurques and the Robbery of the Lyons Mail--The Champignelles
Mystery--Judge Garrow's Story--An Imposition Practised at York
Assizes--A Husband Claimed by Two Wives--A Milwaukee Mystery--A
Scottish Case--The Kingswood Rectory Murder--The Cannon Street
Case--A Narrow Escape.

LESURQUES.

The most famous, and perhaps the most hackneyed, of all cases of
mistaken identity is that of Lesurques, charged with the robbery and
murder of the courier of the Lyons mail, which has been so vividly
brought home to us through the dramatic play based upon it and the
marvellous impersonation of the dual _rôle_, Lesurques-Duboscq, by Sir
Henry Irving.

Lesurques was positively identified as a man who had travelled by the
mail coach, and he was in due course convicted. Yet at the eleventh hour
a woman came into court and declared his innocence, swearing that the
witnesses had mistaken him for another, Duboscq, whom he greatly
resembled. She was the _confidante_ of one of the gang who had planned
and carried out the robbery. But her testimony, although corroborated by
other confederates, was rejected, and Lesurques received sentence of
death. Yet there were grave doubts, and the matter was brought before
the Revolutionary Legislature by the Directory, who called for a
reprieve. But the Five Hundred refused, on the extraordinary ground that
to annul a sentence which had been legally pronounced "would subvert all
ideas of justice and equality before the law."

Lesurques died protesting his innocence to the last. "Truth has not been
heard," he wrote a friend; "I shall die the victim of a mistake." He
also published a letter in the papers addressed to Duboscq: "Man in
whose place I am to die," he wrote, "be satisfied with the sacrifice of
my life. If you are ever brought to justice, think of my three
children, covered with shame, and of their mother's despair, and do not
prolong the misfortunes of so fatal a resemblance." On the scaffold he
said, "I pardon my judges and the witnesses whose mistake has murdered
me. I die protesting my innocence."

Four years elapsed before Duboscq was captured. In the interval others
of the gang had passed through the hands of the police, but the prime
mover was only now taken. Even then he twice escaped from prison. When
finally he was put on his trial, and the judge ordered a fair wig, such
as Lesurques had worn, to be placed on his head, the strange likeness
was immediately apparent. He denied his guilt, but was convicted and
guillotined. Thus two men suffered for one offence.

French justice was very tardy in atoning for this grave error. The
rehabilitation of Lesurques' family was not decreed till after repeated
applications under several _régimes_--the Directory, the Consulate, the
Empire, and the Restoration. In the reign of Louis XVIII. the
sequestrated property was restored, but there was no revision of the
sentence, although the case was again and again revived.

THE CHAMPIGNELLES MYSTERY.

One day in October, 1791, a lady dressed in mourning appeared at the
gates of the Château of Champignelles, and was refused admission. "I am
the Marquise de Douhault, _née_ de Champignelles, the daughter of your
old master. Surely you know me?" she said, lifting her veil. "The
Marquise de Douhault has been dead these three years," replied the
_concierge_; "you cannot enter here. I have strict orders from the Sieur
de Champignelles."

This same lady was seen next day at the village church, praying at the
tomb of the late M. de Champignelles, and many remarked her
extraordinary resemblance to the deceased Marquise. But the marquise was
dead; her funeral service had been performed in this very church. Some
of the bystanders asked the lady's maid-servant who she was, and were
told that they ought to know. Others went up to the lady herself, who
said, "I am truly the Marquise de Douhault, but my brother will not
acknowledge me or admit me to the château."

Then followed formal recognition. People were summoned by sound of drum
to speak to her identity, and did so "to the number of ninety-six, many
of them officials, soldiers, and members of the municipality." The lady
gave many satisfactory proofs, too, speaking of things that "only a
daughter of the house could know." Thus encouraged, she proceeded to
serve the legal notice on her brother and claim her rights--her share of
the property of Champignelles as co-heir, and a sum in cash for back
rents during her absence when supposed to be dead.

Where had she been all this time? Who had died, if not she? Her story,
although clear, precise, and supported by evidence, was most
extraordinary. To understand it we must go back and trace her history
and that of the Champignelles family as given in the memoir prepared by
the claimant for the courts.

Adelaide Marie had been married at twenty-three to the Marquis de
Douhault, who coveted her dowry, and did not prove a good husband. He
was subject to epileptic fits, eventually went out of his mind, and,
after wounding his wife with a sword, was shut up in Charenton. The wife
led an exemplary life till his death, which was soon followed by that of
her father. Her brother now became the head of the family, and is said
to have been a frank blackguard, the real cause of his father's death.
He proceeded to swindle his mother, who was entitled by settlement to a
life interest in the Champignelles estates, subject to pensions to her
children, and he persuaded her to reverse that arrangement--she to
surrender her property, he to pay her an annual allowance. He had gained
his sister's concurrence by obtaining her signature to a blank document,
which he filled up as he wished.

The son, of course, did not pay the allowances, and very often the
mother was in sad straits, reduced at times to pawn her jewels for food.
She appealed now to her daughter, who naturally sided with her, and
wrote in indignant terms to her brother. There was an angry quarrel,
with the threat of a lawsuit if he did not mend his ways. For the
purpose of conferring with her mother, whom she meant to join in the
suit, the Marquise de Douhault proposed to start for Paris.

Having a strange presentiment that this journey would be unlucky, she
postponed it as long as possible, but went at length on the day after
Christmas Day, 1787. Arrived at Orleans, she accepted the hospitality of
a M. de la Roncière and rested there some days. On the 15th of January,
1788, she was to continue her journey, but in the morning she took a
carriage drive with her friends. All she remembered afterwards was that
Madame de la Roncière offered her a pinch of snuff, which she took, and
that she was seized with violent pains in the head, followed by great
drowsiness and stupor; the rest was a blank.

When she came to herself, she was a prisoner in the Salpêtrière. Her
brain was now clear, her mind active. She protested strongly, and,
saying who she was, demanded to be set at large. They laughed at her,
telling her her name was Buirette, and that she was talking nonsense.

Her detention lasted for seventeen months, and she was denied all
communication with outside. At last she managed to inform a friend, the
Duchess of Polignac, of her imprisonment, and on the 13th of July, 1789,
she was released, to find herself alone in Paris in the midst of the
horrors of the Revolution.

She was friendless. Her brother, to whom she at once applied, repudiated
her as an impostor; an uncle was equally cruel; she asked for her
mother, and was told she had none. Then she ran to Versailles, where
many friends resided, found refuge with the Duchess of Polignac, and was
speedily recognised by numbers of people, princes, dukes, and the rest,
all members of that French aristocracy which was so soon to be dispersed
in exile or to suffer by the guillotine. They urged her not to create a
scandal by suing her brother, but to trust to the king for redress. Soon
the king himself was a prisoner, and presently died on the scaffold.

Her case was taken up, however, by certain lawyers, who advanced her
funds at usurious rates, and planned an attack on her brother, under
which, however, they contemplated certain frauds of their own. When she
hesitated to entrust them with full powers one of these lawyers
denounced her to the Committee of Public Safety, and she narrowly
escaped execution. Bailly, the mayor of Paris, was a friend of hers, but
could not save her from imprisonment in La Force, where she remained a
month, then escaping into the country. Here she learnt that her mother
was not dead, and returned to Paris to see her at her last gasp. After
that she wandered to and fro in hiding and in poverty till, in 1791, she
reappeared at Champignelles.

Such was the case the claimant presented to the courts.

A story is good till the other side is heard, and her brother, M. de
Champignelles, clever, unscrupulous, and a friend of the Republican
Government, had a very strong defence. His first answer was to accuse
his sister, or the person claiming to be his sister, of having tried to
seize his château by force of arms, declaring that she had come backed
by three hundred men to claim her so-called rights, and that he had
appealed to the municipality for protection.

This plea failed, and his second was to accuse the claimant of being
someone else. He asserted that she was a certain Anne Buirette, who had
been an inmate of the Salpêtrière from the 3rd of January, 1786. This
date was a crucial point in the case. The claimant had adopted it as the
date of her entry into the Salpêtrière, yet it was clearly shown that at
that time the Marquise de Douhault was alive, and that she resided on
her property of Chazelet through 1786 and 1787. On other points the
claimant showed remarkable knowledge, remembered names, faces of people,
circumstances in the past; and all this tended to prove that she was the
Marquise. But

this error in dates was serious, and it was strengthened by a mistake in
the Christian names of the deceased Marquis de Douhault.

The case came on for trial before the Civil Tribunal of St. Fargeau,
where the commissary of the Republic stated it fully, and with a strong
bias against the claimant. As he put it: "One side asked for the
restitution of a name, a fortune, of which she had been despoiled with a
cruelty that greatly added to the alleged crime; the other charged the
claimant with being an impostor seeking a position to which she had no
right whatever." Between these two alternatives the court must decide,
and either way a crime must be laid bare.

Was it all a fraud? The defence set up was certainly strong.

It rested first on the death of the Marquise. This was supported by the
certificates of the doctors who attended her in her last illness,
documents attested by the municipality of Orleans, which bore witness to
both illness and death. Another document testified that extreme unction
had been administered, and that the burial had been carried out in the
presence of many relatives. The family went into mourning, and the
memory of the Marquise was revered among the honoured dead.

There was next the suspicious commencement of the claim: a letter
addressed by the claimant to the curé of Champignelles, two years and a
half after the death above recorded, asking for a baptismal certificate
and another of marriage. This letter was full of faults of spelling and
grammar, and was signed Anne Louis Adelaide, formerly Marquise de
Grainville, names that were not exact. It was asserted that the real
Marquise was a lady of great intelligence, cultured, highly educated as
became her situation, knowing several languages, and a good musician,
and especially that she was well able to write prettily and correctly.

Then for the identity of the claimant with Anne Buirette there was
seemingly conclusive evidence, the strongest part of it being her own
statement of the date on which she was received at the Salpêtrière. All
the story of her release through the appeal to the Duchess of Polignac
was declared to be untrue. The past life of this Anne Buirette was raked
up, and it was demonstrated that she was a swindler who had been sent to
gaol for an ingenious fraud which may be narrated here. When in 1785, on
the occasion of the birth of a royal prince, the queen wished charitably
to redeem a number of the pledges in the Mont de Piété, the woman
Buirette, being unauthorised, drove round in a carriage, calling herself
a royal attendant, to collect pawn tickets from poor people. She
recovered the sums necessary to redeem the pledges and applied the money
to her own use. For this she was sent to the Salpêtrière, from which she
was released in October, 1789, and not, as she stated, on the day of the
barricades.

From this moment, according to the defence, the fraud began, whether at
her own instance or not could not be shown. Her movements were traced
from place to place as she went about seeking recognition and
assistance, now accepted, more often rejected, by those to whom she
appealed. Finally the commissary closed the case by pointing to the
physical dissimilarity between the two women, the Marquise and the
claimant. The first was known as a lady of quality, distinguished in her
manners, clever, well-bred; the second was obviously stupid and
low-born, stained with vices, given to drink. The Marquise was of frail,
delicate constitution, the claimant seemed strong and robust; the first
had blue eyes, the second black; the first walked lame, the second
showed no signs of lameness.

Yet the claimant persisted, and her counsel upset much that had been
urged. It was shown that the death certificate was not produced; that
the ill-written letters so condemnatory were copies, not originals; that
the official documents purporting to set forth the past life of Anne
Buirette were irregular in form and probably not authentic. The claimant
showed that she was lame, that her eyes were blue; more, that she
carried the scar of the sword wound made by her mad husband years
before. It was all to no purpose. The tribunal refused to enter into the
question of the alleged falsity of the documentary evidence, and taking
its stand upon the date of entry into the Salpêtrière, declared that the
claimant could not be the Marquise de Douhault.

Then followed a long course of tedious litigation. The claim was
revived, carried from court to court, heard and re-heard; one decree
condemned the claimant, and recommended that the case should be dropped;
after five years the Supreme Court of Appeal sent it for a new trial to
the Criminal Court of Bourges. The points referred were: first, to
verify the death of the Marquise de Douhault; second, to establish
whether or not the claimant was Anne Buirette, and if not, third, to say
whether she was the Marquise.

There were now great discrepancies as to the date and the circumstances
of death. Some said it occurred on the 17th of January, 1788, some on
the 18th, some again on the 19th. Other facts also were disputed. As to
the second query, 18 witnesses swore that the claimant was Anne
Buirette; 14 saw no resemblance between Anne Buirette and her, and among
these was Anne Buirette's own husband. As to the third point, 153 out of
224 witnesses declared positively that this was the Marquise herself;
but 53 said either that she was not or that they had never seen the
claimant, whilst among the number were several who had been satisfied as
to her identity in the first instance.

These inquiries were followed by others as to handwriting, and many new
and surprising facts came out. It was asserted by experts that the
letters written before her alleged death by the Marquise and after it by
the claimant were in one and the same hand; that the documents the
claimant was said to have written or signed were forgeries, and must
have been concocted with fraudulent intention.

Now, too, the claimant explained away the famous date of entry into
prison, and laid it to her poor memory, enfeebled by so many
misfortunes.

There seemed enough in all this to reverse the decision of St. Fargeau,
but the Court of Bourges upheld it. The Procureur-Général pronounced his
opinion, formed at the imperious demands of his conscience, that the
claimant was not the Marquise de Douhault; more, that "between her and
that respectable lady there was as much difference as between crime and
virtue."

The law was pitilessly hostile to the very end. On the revival of the
case the claimant was successful in proving that she was certainly not
Anne Buirette, but although she published many memoirs prepared by some
of the most eminent lawyers of the day, and was continually before the
courts during the Consulate and First Empire, she was always unable to
establish her identity. The law denied that she was the Marquise de
Douhault, but yet would not say who she was. To the last she was
nameless, and had no official existence. When she died the authorities
would not permit any name to be inscribed on her tomb.

JUDGE GARROWS STORY.

Our own criminal records abound with cases of disputed or mistaken
identity. Among the most remarkable of them is the one which Judge
Garrow was fond of recounting on the Oxford circuit. He described how a
man was being tried before him for highway robbery, and the prosecutor
identified him positively. The guilt of the accused seemed clear, and
the jury was about to retire to consider their verdict, when a man rode
full-speed into the courthouse yard, and forced his way into the court,
with loud cries to stop the case; he had ridden fifty miles to save the
life of a fellow-creature, the prisoner now at the bar.

This strange interruption would have been resented by the judge, but the
new arrival called upon all present, especially the prosecutor, to look
at him. It was at once apparent that he was the living image of the
prisoner; he was dressed in precisely similar attire, a green coat with
brass buttons, drab breeches, and top boots. The likeness in height,
demeanour, and especially in countenance, was so remarkable that the
prosecutor was dumbfoundered; he could no longer speak positively as to
the identity of the man who had robbed him. All along, the prisoner had
been protesting his innocence, and now, of course, the gravest doubts
arose as to his guilt. The prosecutor could not call upon the second man
to criminate himself, and yet the jury had no alternative but to acquit
the first prisoner. In this they were encouraged by the judge, who
declared that, although a robbery had certainly been committed by one of
two persons present, the prosecutor could not distinguish between them,
and there was no alternative but acquittal.

So the first man got off; but now a fresh jury was empanelled, and the
second was put upon his trial; his defence was simple enough. Only the
day previous the prosecutor had sworn to one man as his robber. Could he
now be permitted, even if he wished, to swear away the life of another
man for the same offence? All he could say was that it was his belief
that it was the last comer that robbed him; but surely if the jury had
acquitted one person to whom he had sworn positively, could they now
convict a second whom he only believed to be guilty? The jury could not
but accept the force of this reasoning, and as the second man would make
no distinct confession of guilt, he was suffered to go free. But the
truth came out afterwards. The two men were brothers; the first had
really committed the crime, and the whole scene had been got up between
them for the purpose of imposing on the Court.

A CASE AT YORK.

A very similar case occurred at York. A gentleman arrived there during
the assize, and having alighted at a good hotel, where he dined and
slept, asked the landlord next morning if he could find anything of
interest in the town. Hearing that the assizes were in progress, he
entered the court, just as a man was being tried for highway robbery.
The case seemed strong against the prisoner, who was much cast down, for
he had been vehemently protesting his innocence. Suddenly, on the
appearance of the stranger, he rose in the dock and cried, "Here, thank
God, is someone who can prove my innocence." The stranger looked
bewildered, but the prisoner went on to declare that he had met this
very gentleman, at a distant place, Dover, on the day of the alleged
robbery, and he now reminded him that he had conveyed his luggage on a
wheelbarrow from the Ship Inn to the packet for Calais. The stranger was
now interrogated, but could not admit that he had been in Dover on that
day, nor had he any distinct recollection of the prisoner. The judge
then inquired whether he was in the habit of keeping a diary, or of
recording the dates of his movements. The gentleman replied that he was
a merchant and made notes regularly in his pocket-book of his
proceedings. This pocket-book was at that moment locked up in his trunk
at the inn, but he would gladly surrender his keys and allow the book to
be fetched, to be produced in Court.

So a messenger was despatched for the book, and in the meantime the
prisoner at the bar questioned the stranger, recalling facts and
circumstances to his mind, with the result that their meeting in Dover
was pretty clearly proved. The stranger had given his name as a member
of a very respectable firm of London bankers, and altogether his
credibility appeared beyond question. Then came the book, which fixed
the date of his visit to Dover. All this remarkable testimony, arrived
at so strangely, was accepted by the jury, and the prisoner was
forthwith discharged. Within a fortnight, the gentleman and the
ex-prisoner were committed together to York Castle, charged with a most
daring act of house-breaking in the neighbourhood!

HOAG OR PARKER?

A very remarkable case of the difficulty of identification is to be
found in American records, under date 1804. A man was indicted

for bigamy, the allegation being that he was a certain James Hoag. The
man himself said that he was Thomas Parker. At the trial, Mrs. Hoag, the
wife, and many relations, with other respectable witnesses, swore
positively that he was James Hoag; on the other hand, Thomas Parker's
wife, and an equal number of credible witnesses, swore to the other
contention. Whereupon the Court recalled the first set of witnesses, who
maintained their opinion, being satisfied that he was James Hoag, his
stature, shape, gestures, complexion, looks, voice, and speech leaving
no doubt on the subject; they even described a particular scar on his
forehead, underneath his hair, and when this was turned back there, sure
enough, was the scar. Yet the Parker witnesses declared that Thomas
Parker had lived among them, worked with them, and was with them on the
very day he was supposed to have contracted his alleged marriage with
Mrs. Hoag. Now Mrs. Hoag played Her last card, and said that her husband
had a peculiar mark on the sole of his foot; Mrs. Parker admitted that
her husband had no such mark. So the court ordered the prisoner to take
off his shoes and stockings and show the soles of his feet; there was no
mark on either of them. Mrs. Parker now claimed him with great
insistency, but Mrs. Hoag would not give up her husband, and there was a
very violent discussion in court. At last a justice of the peace from
Parker's village entered the court and gave evidence to the effect that
he had known him from a child as Thomas Parker, and had often given him
employment. So Mrs. Parker carried off her husband in triumph.

A MILWAUKEE MYSTERY.

An extraordinary case of mistaken identity occurred some fifty years ago
in Milwaukee, in the States, for the details of which I am indebted to a
gentleman of that city, Mr. John W. Hinton. No fewer than ten reputable,
straightforward witnesses swore positively to a dead body as that of a
man with whom they were intimately acquainted and in more or less daily
intercourse. They based their identification upon certain physical facts
of the most unmistakable kind. They were not only satisfied as to the
general features--the height, shape, size, the colour of the hair and
eyes--but there were other peculiar and distinctive marks, such as
scars, loss of teeth, a missing eye, that carried absolute conviction to
the witnesses. Yet they were all absolutely and entirely wrong;
completely deceived by the remarkable resemblance, the strange, almost
incredible similarity of personal traits in two different people.

The case arose out of a mysterious crime. About 9 a.m. on the morning of
the 14th of April, 1855, a party of rag-gatherers were seeking their
harvest from the river just below one of the Milwaukee bridges. A mass
of floating _débris_--chips, scraps of timber, and general rubbish--was
collected in an eddy at the water's edge, and amidst it a boy espied
what he at first thought to be a bag, and afterwards a bundle of rags.
He dragged it on shore with his boat-hook and began to examine it. All
at once he dropped the parcel with a loud yell and took to his heels.
Some of his more courageous fellows then tore it open and exposed its
ghastly contents. Inside was the trunk of a human body, with the head
all but severed, and held only by a few ligaments. The brains had been
dashed out by a blow on the back of the skull, which made a deep
indentation several inches long. A great gash had been made in the
throat; the left eye protruded; both legs had been chopped off and were
gone. The bottom of the bag, as the cover proved to be, had been frayed
out or forced open by the action of the water, and the missing portions
of the trunk had fallen through or been washed out of the aperture.

The Milwaukee police, headed by the Deputy-Sheriff, who had been at one
time Chief of Police, were soon upon the scene. The cause of death was
plain. The weapon used was indicated by the wounds; it was evidently an
axe which had cut into the skull, and the protruding eye had been sliced
out by the same instrument. Close scrutiny of the bag revealed one or
two clues of importance. The bag was a wheat sack, with the name of
"Vogt" stamped upon it; it had been securely tied by peculiar knots,
which an expert eye recognised as French, knots tied by no one but
Frenchmen, and French sailors to boot. Weights had evidently been
inserted in the "slack" of the bag, which had been thus knotted, and
portions of the rope remained attached to the bag. The weights were
gone, and had no doubt been detached at the bottom of the river, with
the result that the corpse had risen to the surface.

The first step towards the detection of the murderer was to identify the
body, and trace back the victim's habits, acquaintances, and
surroundings. Here followed the marvellous mistake made by persons who
on the face of it could not be believed to be in error. A mass of
testimony was immediately forthcoming, all stating in the most explicit,
positive terms that the deceased was a certain John Dwire, well known in
Milwaukee. All who spoke did so definitely, declaring their reasons,
which appeared conclusive. They knew Dwire well, they recognised his
face and its features, his body, the colour of his hair and eyes. This
last was a weak point, however. Dwire was said to have only one eye; the
corpse had two. Although one had been nearly cut away by the axe stroke,
it was still hanging to the head. The witnesses were not to be silenced
by this discrepancy; they pointed triumphantly to other physical proofs:
a scar or burn mark on the left cheek, the size of a sixpence, "a
five-pointed starry scar" which all deposed that Dwire bore; again, he
had lost two front teeth--one in the upper, the other in the lower jaw,
just as was seen in the corpse; the whiskers, of the leg of mutton
pattern, were Dwire's; the bald head also, for hair was growing round
the base of the skull only, curly, and of a sandy hue, as in the case of
Dwire. There was a cut, made in shaving the chin, Dwire's; scars on one
finger of the left hand and on the thumb of the right hand, again
Dwire's; and a nose slightly inclined to one side, also Dwire's. Such
was the evidence of the witnesses, corroborating each other in every
particular, the testimony of people who had known him for years, the
woman of the house where he lodged, the keeper of the boarding-house
where he fed, whom he had not paid in full, the associates who worked
with him and frequented the same haunts.

Yet while the inquest before which these statements were made was
proceeding, unequivocal evidence was adduced which entirely falsified
the story as told. The John Dwire supposed to have been murdered was
alive and well at no great distance from Milwaukee. A whisper to this
effect had been put about, and some of the officials, another
deputy-sheriff, and the city marshal travelled to a point higher up the
river, some sixteen miles distant, where Dwire had been seen at work
since the discovery of his supposed corpse in the stream. He was living
near Kemper's Pier, and had been there uninterruptedly for months--since
the previous Christmas, indeed. Had the Court hesitated to accept this
startling news, all possible doubt must have disappeared by the next
incident. John Dwire himself walked into the court, saying with some
humour, "Lest anyone here should still think I'm dead I have come in
person to assure him that I am not the corpse found in the river last
Saturday morning."

His reappearance, of course, dumbfoundered all present, more
particularly those who had sworn so positively to his mortal remains. It
had another and more beneficial result: it saved an innocent man from
arrest and probable conviction. The first act of the police on the
mistaken identification of the body had been to commence a search in
certain low haunts where Dwire had at times been seen, and they had come
upon an axe recently used lying on a wood-pile in the possession of a
French sailor, commonly called "Matelot Jack," who was the bar tender of
a drinking-shop. The Frenchman had disappeared, but suspicion fell upon
another foreigner, a German, who was an associate of Dwire's, and had
accompanied him when the latter left Milwaukee. This German had come
into the lodging-house asking for Dwire's clothes; he came twice, the
second time armed with a letter from Dwire authorising him to receive
the clothes, but they were impounded for moneys owing. Steps were being
taken to arrest this German, and had not Dwire shown up it might have
gone hard with the suspected person. It had been in Dwire's mind at one
time to leave the neighbourhood, and had he done so the case against the
German would have been pretty complete.

That there had been a murder still remained self-evident, but it was
never positively known by whom it was committed, nor who was the actual
victim. Some years later a man was arrested on suspicion as a thief; he
was carrying a bag heavily laden, and it was found to contain a number
of copper articles, all of them stolen. The bag was inscribed with the
same name, "Vogt," as that picked up in the river. A farmer named Vogt
now came forward and stated that about the time of the picking up of the
unknown corpse he had sent his carter in with a load of wheat packed in
bags such as the two mentioned. The man was supposed to have delivered
his load, driven his team outside the city, the waggon filled with the
empty sacks, and then made off with the price of the wheat. A more
probable theory was that he had been murdered and rifled, his body being
then thrust into one of his own bags, which was thrown into the river.
The case was never carried through to the end, and neither the thief who
was caught with the second bag nor the French sailor, Matelot Jack, was
tried, presumably from want of sufficiently clear evidence to warrant
prosecution.

A SCOTTISH CASE.

Our next case of mistaken identity occurred in Scotland many years ago,
when a farmer's son, a respectable youth, was charged with
night-poaching on the evidence of a keeper, who swore to him positively.
It was a moonlit night, but cloudy. Other witnesses were less certain
than the keeper, but they could speak to the poacher's dress and
appearance, and they saw him disappearing towards the farmer's house.

An attempt to set up an _alibi_ failed, and the prisoner, having been
found guilty by the jury, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment.
On his release, feeling that he was disgraced, he left the country to
take up a situation at the Cape of Good Hope.

Soon afterwards the keepers whose evidence had convicted the wrong man
met the real culprit in the streets of the county town. He was in
custody for theft, and was being escorted to the courts. His name was
Hammond. The keepers followed, and after a longer look were more than
ever satisfied of the mistake they had made, and they very rightly gave
information in the proper quarter. Then a witness came forward who, on
the night of the trespass, had seen and spoken with this man Hammond,
when he had said he was going into the woods for a shot. Hammond
himself, knowing he could not be tried for an offence for which another
had suffered, now voluntarily confessed the poaching. Great sympathy
was shown towards the innocent victim, and the gentleman whose game had
been killed offered to befriend him. But the young man had already made
for himself a position at the Cape of Good Hope, and would not leave the
colony, where indeed he eventually amassed a fortune. On his return to
Scotland, many years later, he was presented with a licence to shoot for
the rest of his days over the estates he was supposed to have poached.

KARL FRANZ.

We now come to the famous Kingswood Rectory case. On the 11th of June,
1861, Kingswood Rectory, in Surrey, was broken into, in the absence of
the family, and the caretaker murdered. The unfortunate woman was found
in her nightdress. She was tied with cords, and had been choked by a
sock used as a gag and stuffed halfway down her throat. There had been
no robbery; the house had been entered by a window in the basement, but
nothing was missing from it, although the whole place had been
ransacked. Trace enough was discovered to establish the identity of one
at least of the murderers. A packet of papers was found lying on the
floor of the room, and it had evidently dropped from the pocket of one
of the men.

This packet contained six documents: a passport made out in the name of
Karl Franz, of Schandau, in Saxony; a certificate of birth, and another
of baptism, both in the name of Franz; a begging letter with no address,
but signed Krohn; and a letter from Madame Titiens, the great singer, in
reply to an appeal for help. Besides these, there was a sheet of paper
on which were inscribed the addresses of many prominent personages; part
of the stock-in-trade of a begging-letter writer. All these papers
plainly implied that one of the criminal intruders into Kingswood
Rectory was a German. Moreover, within the last few days several German
tramps had been seen in the neighbourhood of Kingswood, one of whom
exactly answered to the description on the passport.

A few weeks later, a young German, in custody in London for a trifling
offence, was recognised as Karl Franz. He himself positively denied that
he was the man, but at last acknowledged that the documents found in
Kingswood Rectory were his property. He was, in due course, committed
for trial at the Croydon assizes. The prosecution seemed to hold very
convincing evidence against him. A Saxon police officer was brought
over, who identified him as Karl Franz, and swore that the various
certificates produced had been delivered to him on the 6th of April of
the same year. Another witness swore to Franz as one of the men seen in
the neighbourhood of the rectory on the 11th of June; while a third
deposed to having met two strangers in a wayside public-house, talking a
foreign language, and identified Franz as one of them. This recognition
was made in Newgate, where he picked out Franz from a crowd of
prisoners. Yet more: the servant of a brushmaker in Reigate deposed that
two men, speaking some unknown tongue, had come into the shop on the day
of the crime, and had bought a hank of cord. One of these men she firmly
believed to be the accused. This was the same cord as that with which
the murdered woman was bound.

What could the accused say to rebut such seemingly overwhelming
evidence? He had, nevertheless, a case, and a strong case. He explained
first that he had changed his name because he had been told of the
Kingswood murder, and of the discovery of his papers. They were
undoubtedly his papers, but they had been stolen from him. His story was
that he had landed at Hull, and was on the tramp to London, when he met
two other Germans by the way, seamen, Adolf Krohn and Muller by name,
and they all joined company. Muller had no papers, and was very anxious
that Karl Franz should give him his. On the borders of Northamptonshire
the three tramps spent the night behind a haystack. Next morning Franz
awoke to find himself alone; his companions had decamped, and his papers
were gone. He had been robbed also of a small bag containing a full suit
of clothes.

This story was discredited. It is a very old dodge for accused persons
to say that suspicious articles found on the scene of a crime had been
stolen from them. Yet Franz's statement was suddenly and unexpectedly
corroborated from an independent source. The day after he had told his
story, two vagrants, who were wandering on the confines of
Northamptonshire, came across some papers hidden in a heap of straw.
They took them to the nearest police-station, when it was found that
they bore upon the Kingswood case. One was a rough diary kept by the
prisoner Franz from the moment of his landing at Hull to the day on
which he lost his other papers. The inference was that it had been
stolen from him too, but that the thieves, on examination, found the
diary useless, and got rid of it. Another of the papers was a
certificate of confirmation in the name of Franz. Now, too, it was
proved beyond doubt that the letter written by Madame Titiens was not
intended for the accused. The recipient of that letter might no doubt
have been an accomplice of the accused, but then it must have been
believed that these men kept their papers together in one lot, which was
hardly likely.

Another curious point on which the prosecution relied also broke down. A
piece of cord had been found in Franz's lodgings, exactly corresponding
with that bought at Reigate, and used in tying the victim. But now it
was shown that this cord could only have been supplied to the Reigate
shop by one rope-maker, there being but one manufacturer of that kind of
cord; and this fact rested on the most positive evidence of experts.
Franz had declared that he had picked up this bit of cord in a street in
Whitechapel, near his lodgings, and opposite to a tobacconist's shop. On
further inquiry it was not only found that the rope factory which alone
supplied this cord was situated within a few yards of Franz's lodgings,
but his solicitor, in verifying this, picked up a scrap of the very same
cord in front of a shop in that same street!

THE CANNON STREET CASE.

A very narrow escape from wrongful conviction occurred in the case
generally known as the Cannon Street murder, which happened in April,
1866. Here the suspected murderer was tried for his life, and the
circumstantial evidence against him was so exceedingly strong that but
for a very able defence conducted before Mr. Baron Bramwell, one of the
strongest judges England has had, the prisoner would surely have been
convicted.

A certain Sarah Milson was housekeeper at Messrs. Bevington's, the
well-known furriers and leather dressers of Cannon Street. She was a
widow, and had been employed by the firm for several years. It was her
duty to occupy the premises at night when the working hands had left the
house. She was not alone, for a female cook also lived on the premises.
It was the rule of the house that the porter, a man named Kit, should
lock the doors when the day's work was over, and hand over the keys,
including those of the safe, to Mrs. Milson.

On the night of the 11th of April, 1866, Kit performed this duty, and
then called upstairs through the speaking-tube to Mrs. Milson, who came
down to receive the keys. His last act was to extinguish the light in
the lobby, after which he was shown out of the front door by Mrs.
Milson.

A little later the same evening the cook, who was upstairs in her
bedroom, heard a ring at the door-bell, and was on the point of
answering it when Mrs. Milson, who was sitting in the dining-room,
called out that the bell was for her, and she accordingly went down.
This was about ten minutes past nine. The unfortunate housekeeper was
never again seen alive. Later that night the cook, on going downstairs
with a lighted candle in her hand, found Mrs. Milson dead at the foot of
the stairs. The police were at once called in, and found that death was
caused by the battering in of the woman's head, and a large quantity of
blood was spattered over the stairs. A crowbar was found close to the
body, and was probably the instrument by which the murder had been
effected, although it was unstained with blood.

An inquiry was at once set on foot by the police, who ascertained
certain facts. First, the cook declared that a man came constantly to
call upon the housekeeper, that she herself had never seen the man, but
that on one occasion, just before his expected arrival, Mrs. Milson had
borrowed two sovereigns from her, which had afterwards been repaid. The
identity of this man was discovered next day when a letter was found in
one of the boxes of the deceased, signed "George Terry." This letter, a
claim made upon Mrs. Milson for the repayment of certain moneys she
owed, expressed great indignation, and threatened that unless Mrs.
Milson could offer satisfactory terms the writer would complain to Mr.
Bevington of his housekeeper's indebtedness. Attached to this letter was
a receipt signed "William Denton, on behalf of George Terry, 20, Old
Change."

It was not difficult to follow up George Terry from the address given,
and he was presently found as an inmate of St. Olave's Workhouse. He
readily told the story of his relations with Mrs. Milson. She had been
acquainted with his wife, and as she was in difficulties, he had helped
her to get a loan from a certain Mrs. Webber, the total amount being
£35. Mrs. Webber appears to have been very urgent about repayment, and
so Terry sent Mrs. Milson the letter which was found, but which he did
not write himself, having secured the services of a fellow-lodger whom
he knew by the name of Bill. "Bill" wrote the letter, went with it to
Cannon Street, signed the receipt for such money as he received, and
brought back the money. This had occurred some three months before. The
man calling himself Denton was then traced, and proved to be a certain
William Smith, who lived at Eton, at 6, Eton Square. The City detectives
who had charge of the case went at once to Eton with the letter and the
receipt, which were shown to William Smith and acknowledged to be in his
handwriting.

There was enough in this to warrant the man Smith's arrest on suspicion,
but the police soon had stronger evidence. A woman, Mrs. Robins, who
acted as housekeeper at No. 1, Cannon Street, volunteered some very
damaging information. She stated that on the night of the murder she
returned to No. 1 at ten minutes to ten. As she was on the point of
entering her house she heard the door of No. 2 violently slammed.
Looking round, she saw a man go down the steps and pass her on the
right. He was dressed in dark clothes and wore a tall hat. The light of
the hall lamp shone on the man's face, so that she was able to know it;
she noticed that he walked in a very hurried manner, leaning forward as
he went along. In order to see whether Mrs. Robins could identify this
man, William Smith was taken from Bow Street to the Mansion House
through Cannon Street. He was between two police officers, but there was
nothing to show that he was in custody. Mrs. Robins had been warned by
the police to stand at her door at the time the party passed, and she
was asked to say whether she could recognise her man. She made out Smith
without hesitation; but to strengthen her evidence, she was sent for to
the Mansion House, where the prisoner was placed amongst a number of
people in a room through which Mrs. Robins was invited to pass. As she
crossed the room for the second time she pointed to Smith and said,
"This is the man I saw in Cannon Street."

Another very damaging witness was a boat-builder, Henry Giles, of Eton,
who deposed that he met the prisoner Smith in an alehouse on the night
of the 11th of April. Giles asked Smith to play a game of dominoes, but
Smith replied that he had to travel forty miles that night. "How can you
do that?" asked Giles. "Easy enough," was the reply; "if I go to London
and back, that would make forty miles." Giles then said, "But you are
not going to London, are you?" and Smith replied, "Yes, I am," at which
Giles laughed and called him a liar. Another witness declared that he
had seen Smith hurrying towards Slough Station about 7 p.m. The prisoner
was said to be wearing dark clothes, a black coat, and a tall black hat.

The evidence of railway officials proved that a train had left Slough at
7.43 and reached Paddington at 8.40. There was also a train down at
10.45, which arrived at 11.43. It was said in evidence that the interval
of two hours was quite sufficient to allow Smith to go into the City by
the Metropolitan Railway, commit the crime in Cannon Street, and return
_viâ_ Bishop's Road to Paddington. Further evidence against the man
Smith consisted of spots upon his coat which were believed to be
blood-stains, but which he accounted for by alleging that he had cut
himself in shaving.

Here was a man of indifferent character, an idle ne'er-do-well, known to
have had dealings with the murdered woman, against whom very clear
circumstantial evidence had been adduced. He was shown to have said he
was going to London; he was seen close to the station where a train was
on the point of starting for London; he was recognised by a respectable
woman at just the time he could have reached the house in Cannon Street
had he travelled up to Paddington as alleged, and added to all this
there were the blood-stains on his coat.

Yet the whole case broke down on the production of the most complete and
unquestionable _alibi_. It was proved beyond all question that Smith did
not go to London from Slough by the 7.43 train. The prisoner admitted
that he had walked in the direction of Slough Station with the idea of
meeting a friend. But he was certainly in company with a man named
Harris in Eton Square a little before 6.30, and the two remained
together until ten minutes past ten.

A number of other witnesses corroborated this statement--a brazier, a
photographer, a gardener, a bootmaker, and so on. Ten or twelve men in
all had had Smith under their eyes through the whole of the time that he
was supposed to be killing the woman in Cannon Street. One had been
drinking with him, three others had played cards with him, an
alehouse-keeper's wife had served him with beer after 11 p.m.

It was altogether absurd to suppose that these witnesses had combined
to perjure themselves on behalf of Smith. But even if such a combination
had been possible, although no motive for it had been produced, there
was other evidence that spoke unconsciously for the prisoner. If Smith
had really committed the crime he would never have denied that he went
to London, as he did deny it; he would have made some excuse for his
going, feeling sure that the fact would be discovered. Another curious
fact was that, as he was undoubtedly at Eton at 7.30, he must have gone
at great speed to catch the 7.43 train at Slough, a full mile distant.
There was not the least necessity for it either, as the Windsor Station
was only a few yards from where he had been seen. A defence of this kind
was perfectly unanswerable; the judge summed up entirely in favour of
the prisoner, and directed the jury to find him not merely "Not guilty,"
but actually innocent of the crime.

I cannot leave this interesting case, in which there was nearly a
miscarriage of justice from mistaken circumstantial evidence, without
relating a curious fact within my own knowledge that grew out of this
murder. In December, 1869, when I was acting as Controller of the
Convict Prison at Gibraltar, a convict came before the Visitors who
appeared under strong emotion, and who told me in a broken voice, with
tears in his eyes, that he wished to give himself up as one of the
Cannon Street murderers. I cannot remember the man's name, but I will
call him X. After hearing what he had to say, the Visitors asked him
what had induced him to make this confession. "Because," said he, "I
didn't do the job alone. My accomplice, Y" (as I will call him), "has
just come out in the last draft from England. I have not yet spoken to
him, but I am greatly afraid that he might forestall me in my
confession." The man spoke with such evident contrition and good faith
that the Visitors felt bound to accept his story; but they sent for the
other, meaning to confront them.

Y started violently when he came into our presence and saw X standing
there, but he positively denied his complicity in the murder. For some
time, too, he refused to acknowledge that he knew X, and then followed a
strange altercation between the two, X earnestly imploring Y to make a
clean breast of it, as he himself had done; Y as stoutly repudiating all
connection with the matter. Just when we had made up our minds to
dismiss both the men and report the case home for instructions, Y's
better nature seemed to triumph, and he admitted thus tardily that he
had been concerned in the murder of Mrs. Milson. Our next step was to
order both men into separate and solitary confinement until instructions
could be received from home. We fully expected to hear in due course
that both men were to be sent home to stand their trial for the Cannon
Street murder.

I am not ashamed to confess that we had been completely humbugged. A
full and searching inquiry had been instituted by the Home Office
authorities, more particularly into the antecedents and movements of the
two convicts, and it was established beyond all doubt that neither of
them could have possibly committed the crime, seeing that both were in
custody for another offence on the day of the murder. I am free to admit
that in the many years I have since spent in the charge and control of
criminals, I have been very loath, after this experience, to accept
confessions, although I have had many made to me. Mine is not a singular
experience, as most police and prison officials will say. Indeed, the
general public themselves must have noticed that there are few
mysterious crimes committed which are not confessed to by persons who
could not possibly have been guilty. In the case of X and Y, the whole
trick had been devised for the simple purpose of escaping daily labour
and gaining a few weeks' complete idleness in the cells.

False confessions, it may be added, are a frequent source of trouble to
the police. Whenever some great criminal mystery has shocked the public
mind, silly people, whether from constant brooding over the fact or from
sheer imbecility, are driven to surrender themselves as the criminals.
It will be remembered that at the time of the Whitechapel murders
numbers of people stood self-confessed as the perpetrators of these
crimes, eager to take upon themselves the criminal identity of the
mysterious "Jack the Ripper." I have recorded elsewhere[7] a curious
case in which a lady of good position, married, having many children and
a perfectly happy home, became possessed with the idea that she had
committed murder--that of a soldier in garrison in the town where she
lived. At length she wrote to Scotland Yard, and made full confession of
her crime, adding that she meant to arrive in London next day, where she
was prepared to submit herself to arrest, trial, and whatever penalty
might be imposed. All she asked was that she might not be separated from
her children, and that if they could not accompany her to gaol they
might at least be permitted to visit her frequently. Next day she
arrived as she had threatened, and drove up to Scotland Yard in a cab,
herself and children inside, her portmanteaux and a huge bath on the
box. There she sat, and positively refused to move anywhere except to
gaol. The police authorities, after vainly arguing with her, were on the
point of taking charge of her as a wandering lunatic, and sending her
home, but the Assistant Commissioner hit upon a happy device for getting
rid of her. This was to tell her that if she went to gaol she must be
separated absolutely from her children. If, however, she would sign a
paper promising to appear whenever called upon, she might remain with
her children in her own home. The ruse was successful; she signed the
promise, and returned as she had come.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

An innocent man narrowly escaped death through an artful plot which led
to a mistake of identity, but which fortunately, at the eleventh hour,
was brought home to its criminal contrivers. A certain Mr. Henderson, a
respectable merchant of Edinburgh, was in 1726 charged with the forgery
of an acceptance, signed by the Duchess of Gordon, although, as a matter
of fact, he was ignorant of the whole affair. In the year mentioned it
was discovered that a man named Petrie, who filled the post of town
officer or constable in Leith, held a bill for £58 which purported on
the face of it to have been drawn by George Henderson on the Duchess of
Gordon, accepted by her, and paid over by Henderson to a Mrs. Macleod.
This Mrs. Macleod owed a sum of money to Petrie, and she begged him for
a further advance, which he made, to the amount of £6, Mrs. Macleod
lodging with him as security the acceptance which she had received from
Henderson. Petrie took no action on the bill in the way of demanding
payment from the Duchess of Gordon; this was at the instance of Mrs.
Macleod, who assured him that her Grace was at that time engaged in
special devotional exercises, and that the Duchess's agent was absent
from Edinburgh. Petrie was put off with other excuses. Mrs. Macleod
continued to beg him to hold over the bill, and brought him a letter to
the same effect purporting to come from Henderson. Petrie, although
suspicious as to the genuineness of the bill, took no steps, and the
matter came out otherwise; whereupon the Edinburgh magistrates issued a
warrant for the arrest of the three parties--Petrie, Henderson, and Mrs.
Macleod. Petrie was almost immediately exonerated, but Mrs. Macleod gave
such evidence against Henderson that he was held to be fully
incriminated, and was put back for trial. Mrs. Macleod asserted
positively that the bill had been given her by Henderson.

In due course Henderson was arraigned. Several witnesses swore
positively that they had seen Henderson sign documents, especially an
acknowledgment of a debt to Mrs. Macleod. One, a man named Gibson,
declared that the signature had been given in his own house by
Henderson, and in his presence and that of other witnesses. He appears
to have identified Henderson in the dock, asserting that he had often
previously seen him and been in his company. Gibson further declared
that Henderson wore a suit of dark-coloured clothes, and a black wig
such as he now appeared in.

Henderson's defence was that he knew absolutely nothing of the whole
proceeding. His counsel adduced in his favour that he was a man of
excellent character, and his demeanour at the trial, his straightforward
answers to all interrogatories, and the outward appearance of truth in
all his details, no doubt made an impression upon the Court. The Lord
Advocate, his prosecutor, pressed hard for a conviction, on the ground
that the forgery of the bill had been fully proved. The judges, however,
stayed proceedings, and postponed decision until the following session.

Now, when the case looked blackest against Henderson, a mere chance
interposed to save him. The Lord Advocate, who seems to have had no
doubt of his guilt, was on his way northward to spend the recess, when
he paid a visit on the way to a Mr. Rose, of Kilravock. One day Mr. Rose
took his lordship to see a house he was building, and while inspecting
it Mr. Rose missed one of the carpenters. On inquiring what had become
of him, the foreman took Mr. Rose aside and privately told him that the
man, hearing the Lord Advocate was at Kilravock, had absconded, saying
it was time for him to leave the country. The man in question, by name
David Household, had gone to the coast, proposing to take ship for
London. Mr. Rose felt it his duty to inform the Lord Advocate, and the
foreman was questioned as to whether the carpenter had been guilty of
any crime. The answer was that Household was suspected of being
accessory to a forgery. The Lord Advocate forthwith despatched a
messenger to the coast, who apprehended Household, and carried him
prisoner to Edinburgh. Household was brought before the Court at the
beginning of the winter session and questioned, when he confessed that
he had been party to a very scandalous and deliberate fraud. Early in
the year Mrs. Macleod had come to him and asked him to write out for her
the very bill or acceptance for the forgery of which George Henderson
was charged. Household admitted that he had penned the whole document,
and had imitated the signatures of Henderson, both as drawer and
endorser of the bill, but that he had not written the name of Gordon.
Household further deposed that he had assumed, at Mrs. Macleod's
request, the identity of George Henderson; that she had given him for
the personation a coat belonging to her husband, and a black-knotted
periwig; that she had carried him to a gardener's house at the
Water-Gate, where she had dictated to him a part of the obligation which
had been produced in court; and had then taken him on to a house in the
Canon-Gate (Gibson's), where he (Household) had written the rest of the
document, and signed it

"George Henderson" in the presence of the various witnesses whom Mrs.
Macleod had produced. He also confessed that he had written the letter
which Mrs. Macleod had given Petrie as coming from George Henderson.
Finally, after Mrs. Macleod's arrest, a Highlander had come to him with
a message from Mr. Macleod urging him to leave the country for his own
safety. Household, however, did not take flight until the appearance of
the Lord Advocate at Kilravock; then he went to Leith, and hid himself
on board ship, where he was discovered by a Customs officer, and
eventually arrested.

This evidence changed the whole character of the trial, and the Lord
Advocate was the first to admit that Henderson was innocent of the
forgery, which was now fixed upon Mrs. Macleod. The records of the case
do not give any definite information as to who actually signed the
Duchess's name to the bill, but when Mrs. Macleod was finally arraigned
this forgery was laid to her charge, and her offence must have been
satisfactorily proved to the jury, for she was found guilty and
sentenced to death. Two law officers, the Lord Advocate and the
Solicitor-General, characterised the whole "as an artful and horrid
contrivance, only discovered by the good providence of God." It is
stated in the account published that Mrs. Macleod went to her execution
dressed in a black robe with a large hoop, and a white fan in her hand.
When on the gallows she herself took off the ornamental parts of her
dress, and put the fatal cord about her neck with her own hands. She
persisted to the last in denying her guilt.

The Duchess of Gordon in this case was Lady Henrietta Mordaunt, daughter
of the celebrated Charles Earl of Peterborough, and wife of Alexander,
second Duke, whom she married in 1706, twenty years before the
occurrences recorded.