"MONTE CARLO" WELLS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1395, 22 March 1912, Page 5

" MONTE CARLO " WELLS.

$ EXTRADITION ORDERED. By Tcleicrapu—Press AsaocihwD/i Cnnyrlchi London, March 20. "Monte Carlo" Wells and tho woman Peris have been ordered to be extradited. THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK. A VENERABLE CRIMINAL. "Wells of Monte Carlo" is the name of a venerable criminal who has been a convict in moro than ono country. The police assert that ho is identical with Lucien Rivier, a "financier," who vanished suddenly from Paris in April Inst alter effecting a brilliant coup by promising to pay small investors 1 per cent per day on all money deposited with him. At •first the .very obvious bait was taken by only a few dupes, but months went by and on every fifteenth day the daring investors received the accumulated fortnight's interest. News of this spread, with the result that the "bank" was desieged and an enormous business was done. Bivier, a little old man of about seventy, with venerable white hair, abstemious in all his habits, directed the great business, ono feature of which was the intenso politeness extended to the very smallest client. When Rivier had collected somo ,£70,000 or more he suddenly disappeared, and was pursued by the French police unavailingly for nearly a year. According to the French newspapers the Paris detectives suspected that tho woman Peris had lied with Rivier, and sot a watch upon her sister." Their vigilance was rewarded bv letters which gave them tho clue to the ex-financier's retreat on board tho steam yacht Excelsior at Falmouth. Jeanne Peris is about forty years old and passed as Rivier's niece. "Monte Carlo" Wells, or William Davenport, has had an astonishing career. Educated as an engineer in France, ho camo to England in 1885 with .£BOOO. He exhausted hia fortune in taking out patents, nearly a hundred in number and ranging from a musical skipping-rope to torpedoes and electric light. Then he advertised for persons with capital to assist in the working of his scheme. Thus ho raised nearly .£50,000. With this money he went to Monte Carlo to test a "system" he had for breaking the bank. Wells s own story was that tho money he used at Monto Carlo was provided bv two Americans. In his own words ho u-on i>63.000 in fivo months at the Through tho same exploit he was the hero of tho song "Tho Man Who Broke the Bank at Monto Carlo." Jtis own share of his winnings, ho used to sav, was .£20,000. Of the remainder ,£31.000 went to "a wandering Jew" for assisting in a commercial enterprise in Paris styled "Wells and Co."

Wells is said to have had no fewer than thirty-six aliases in his long career Ho sometimes posed as a teacher of the piano, sometimes as an engineer, sometimes as a professor of languages. Ho speaks English, French, and Italian perfectly, and if he had been of a cautious temperament might have retired with a comfortable income quite early in his