SIDNEY LASCELLES, SWINDLER

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1907, Page 13

SIDNEY LASCELLES, SWINDLER

A REMARKABLE RASCAL.

LONDON, May 17.

By the death at Asheville, in North Carolina, of Sidney Lascelles, Australia loses a son who promised to go down in criminal history as one of the most accomplished swindlers and. bigamists of the" century. Lascelles was born in Australia of well-to-do parents, but when he was quite young financial misfortune fell upon his father, who returned to England and became"'a gamekeeper on the estate of the Dnke of Devonshire. When Sidney Lascelles grew up he learned to ride to hounds, and speedily became a favourite with the Duke"s guests, and with the gentry round about Chatsworth. Thrown much into the society of men of high degree, young Lascelles proved an apt imitator of the speech and manners of the "upper ten"—in fact, he was almost indistiguishable from the real article. But there was a large "bad streak" in him. At the age 'of one-and-twenty he requited the Duke's kindness to him by breaking open one of his Grace's strong boxes and stealing: a large sum of money. With this he fled to Algiers, and for a time "swelled it with the best" as Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Marcus o' that ilk, Sir Harry Vane, Lord Courtenay, and a dozen other Englishmen of rank and fame. After a -royal, if rather dangerous, career, in Algiers, he arranged to, restore part of his plunder on condition that he was spared a prosecution, and allowed to return to England. These concessions were made, and he came back to the Old Country, where he had the good fortune to meet and make the friendship of the then American Ambassador. From this gentleman, whom he most completely deceived, he obtained letters of introduction to many notable families in America, for which country he set sail in ISS6. The very next year he married a Miss Clara Pelky, heiress to £20,000, and daughter of a wealthy Providence (Rhode Island) merchant. He deserted her in Mexico, after running through her money, and, after perpetrating other swindles on his way through the conntry, eventually met and eloped with a Miss LTUienthaL They were married in Beaver, Pennsylvania, and went to Georgia to live, when he was arrested there on a charge of forgery. His wife stuck to him, and through her influence the Governor of Georgia pardoned him. Later on Miss Lilllenthal secured a divorce when her husband"s crimes were proved to her.

Since then Lascelles has operated as a swindler and bigamist, usually with great success. Once or twice he was bowled out and Imprisoned, but as a 'rule his crimes went unpunished. No man was more successful in the role of aristocratic bridegroom. He posed frequently as "Lord Water S. Beresford," but in remote districts, where handbooks of the British peerage are not always available, he would invent a_ special title for the occasion, and play with amazing effrontery until suspicions were aroused, when he would abscond, only -to appear elsewhere with another bogus title. In the big cities, of course, he dared not play the role of peer, but in the villages and small towns of the South and Middle West he traded without limit upen his theory that all the Englishspeaking races, no matter what they may say or writs, "dearly love a lord." He di-essed in the height of fashion, wore good jewellery, and could speak for hours at a stretch upon the fashlonahle people he knew in England, the house parties to which he was invited, the noblemen with whom, he -was on intimate teems, and so forth. ; Lascelles was in the matter of matrimony a long way behind the infamous Witzhoff — the "Boss Bigamist"—who married 76 wo-, mcn 1 In America a".onei but fte was "bride-' groomed" in at least four-and-twenty bogus marriages, and was respondent- (he never appeared, of course)in a dozen divorce cases. Women were his favourite victims, but he swindled plenty of men who, believing that he was really a genuine English nobleman, assisted him with generous cheques..

Under the name of Turnbull he defrauded many members of the American colony in Mexico. His last conviction was in Boston a few years ago on a charge of larceny, and since that time he has been In the South, which was a favourite place for him to operate In. Detectives were looking for him at New York two years ago, but he disappeared. At Ashville, where •"«• died, he was known as "Mr. Henry s. Asq-uith," and during his Illness he was attended by physicians and trained nurses, to whom he promised liberal rewards.