"MONTE CARLO" WELLS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1606, 25 November 1912, Page 5

"MONTE CARLO" WELLS.

TIVB • YEARS' IMPRISONMENT. . By Telezraipli—Press Association—Copyright Paris, November 22. The trial of "Monte Carlo" Wells has begun. Counsel explained the system whereby Wells had broken the bank ,nt Monte Carlo ten times, winning in 1891. He also won .£7OOO last year. ' v (Rec. November 24, 5.5 p.m.) Paris, November 23. : Wells has been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and Jeanne Burns to thirteen months. / I • .

Early in Marcli last, Wells and a woman named Jeanne Peris were arrested on, board tlie yacht Excelsior, and extradited to France. "Monte Carlo" Wells, or William Davonport, has had' an astonishing career. Educated as an engineer in France, he oame to England in 1885> with .£BOOO. Ho exhausted his 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 6cheme. Thus hn raised nearly ,£50,000. With this money he went to Monte Carlo to test a, "system" he had for breaking the bank.' Well's own story was that the money he used at Monte Carlo was provided by two Americans, In his own words he won .£03,000 in five months at the tables: Through the 6ame exploit he was the hero of the song "Tho Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte -Carlo." His own share of his winnings, he used to say, was ;520,i)00. 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. He sometimes posed as 'et teacher of the piano, sometimes as an engineer, sometimes as a professor of languages. He speaks English, French, and Italian perfectly, and if he had been of a cautious temperament might have retired with a comfortable inoome quite early m his career.