COLONEL WAUGH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 652, 5 February 1859, Page 3

COLONEL WAUGH.

.. „ . (From the ' Times,') . There is a piece of composition well known in our literature, "Art Epistle to the-Most Impudent Man Alive.' We offer a parallel of this to-day in an epistle from the most impudent man alive. The notorious and,.with this letter before us, we cannot help adding the further epithet, infamous Colonel Waugh comes forward at the bar of public opinion to complain of hard usage at the hands of the press, "Be it so. Let the public be judge between us.

. The'facts ■ of'this case "we draw from our own Bankruptcy reports. We have no other sources of information. There are some individual cases of woe and desolation, stories of cold healths and shat» tered domesticities, wretched tales.of private misery 5 but these are not "legal evidence, and must not he introduced to cause a pr judice against the bankrupt." We have also, it is true, a general recollecti. n of a blazing prodigality and a more than Eastern magnife nee; of a palace that arose like an exhalation, and has been found too splendid to find a sober purchaser; of banquets'that havn passed, away, and festivals that have left only the iil odours of the extinguished lamps,—all these we recollect, but these, also, are "not legal evidence," so we conline ourselves to the proceedings in the Court of Bankruptcy. .Those dull rooms in Basinghnll-streot are the last scene of many a fairy tale. It is there the drawers supposed to contain t.he fairy coin are opened; we must not listen to stories of the bright' ness of the gold that was locked rip in thorn long ago, we may only weigh and value .the dry leaves we find there.

Abiding, then, by the prosaic guidance of lawyers a id Commissioners, it appears that some years previous to April, 1847. there liveu one Captain Waugh, who had been, as he says, mentioned in despatches, but who has since been more noticeably mentioned in Gazettes,—for to Home eyes lie has attained tha ambition of Nelson, and has hud a Gazette t.o himself. So far as we know, his name was not quoted in the city as 'agrept cnpnlist. Ho had made a good marriage, and possessed in the right, of his wife tu\ income of £600 a-year ; hut our tiuthority does not tell us, and the facts do not disclose, that ho had any property whatever of his own ; nor do probabilities favour the presumption that his own mean;) wereyreaterttiaiithoaeof -an ordinary uavi'lryeapinln whose very scan tyc/p)iy is, aided by soni..- modest independence:?; This Xftpttm> Whu»li, being* thus neither dtestJCutti hor:'rit!h l .heing without the justification of adequatx;;jiieans;orthe. pniliailvo ex; use of/4e&pcratii.;lbr^iine^.j,ot)n'f^!-->'«tt.'d with one. Stephens to'''staft a'ji»lmt-stytik luvhk, —not wjih. the intention, as after Vveftrk'showed, uf initiating an honest banking establishment, but for ! he purpose of acquiring access to alar»e heap of other peiipli's mon jr, w oriU'.v that he niifiht al-itract and'

B*lH i, i. m to have been miufo ti,« iolmSl^W Wlf h 1". OT <« he-new became, »v WhJ^L* "^""yfonnexions of which ho impudently bwstetfornied the facilities .for success in SotS?* 10"'6! 1"8 SJ«»»tfc swindle, for among the victims It wfts-ufterwards found that many mUitarv men •connected with ourSndiaimervice were to be runted. The nefarious scheme succeeded Mr Stephens, * cavalry sorgeou, became the'Manaciiur ©.rectorof the-London tt nd Eastern BanicY Colo c! \\ augh Ijecame one t>f »its directors,; the other carties to the-scheme,l>oth-Directors and Shareholders -*ppe»r to be either innocent dupes or very fS 'ln ? d^2r SitS flowed ™. «na as they CoE ! w S° C°lOTel Waxigh roaderthem to flow out be Zt m^ nifi,ce^ expenditure, need not oe evidenced only by our loose recollections, but may be read in the Mils for trousseaux and jewels claimed under the bankruptcy. Tins part if the story is soon tdld. Time, and fashion, and extra, vagance, and Colonel Waugh" ran tlieir course, and one morning the doors of the London and Eastern Bank were closed, *nd Colonel Waugh had absconded to the Continent. Now came the investigation It turned out that Colonel Waugh.'in addition to all nis other debts, had, with the connivance of Stephens obtained fro«n the funds of the Bank and —we quote the statement of counsel at the meeting Of the 19th November-that "the securities heldwere era merely nominal value." An examination of the attairs of .the Bank showed a deficit of JE360,996 So that the operations of this gigantic swindler had alone broken the Bank, had absorbed a small margin of profits, and had consumed the whole of deficit.. Alone this Colonel did it. Why, when ■we lightly compared him to heroic times, we did not do justice to the magnitude of his capacity. Hercules listened to the complaints of his companions ■ ux the Argo, and when they urged that he was eating-up>aU their food and-sinking-thevesselby ius bulk himself to be put on-shore; but this more than heroic «ncumbrance, this Waugh persistently held ontill the last scrap was consumed, =■ and the ship was foundering in deep water. Then indeed, he ran away. Did he fly from the sight of the wide spread misery he had created for the mere canton enjoyment of a little season of riot? We fear not. He had committed a crime, and was amenable to the criminal law. He travelled through kpam and France, and wrote false letters homeaccompanied by what the Bankruptcy Commissioner bo very temperately called "unsatisfactory " certificates of ill-health, and he deplored the impossi- « y.» Puslun& his travels nearer to England than Marseilles or some other frontier town of France Meantime the property which is the onlysubstantiai residuum of his swindle, and which he has the double audacity to speak of as a positive property, justifying his expenditure, and as a security of sufficient value to justify his abstractions, was put up to sale Jast month, and no bidder was found to offer £50,000 font. If any one has a fancy for a picturesque island and a gorgeous palace, which have stood security for £ 280,000, and were late the property of. WilhamPetrie Waugh, of Branksea Island, brick and tile maker, limeburner, dealer and chapman, formerly a Directdr in the London and Eastern • Banking Corporation, he can enjoy all the _ princely advantages of this great estate oy paying down the sum t>f £50,000. late owner is a fugitive and an outlaw, with the ■wail of the tears of orphans upon his head, but lie has been a man of fashion in his day, and he is demanding readmissidn to.his country and to society as an ill-used man. • ' •'...,.■ J

This is the man who dares, to sign his name to a publicletter^and to complainio his countrymen of £?£?£ ? Mf 4 hiin*^ariimadyewions«iwn his crimes, wnen a collateral subject called the&cbof his erie•2SSl^ ti* ■$*£% ind?»tli« ?aguely to our nimor 7l r*•ptaxhghffy and jestingly«f<the man's "S?;"!!'1^ «*>** "»^« to indicate a *«RUlig.th«j td'scbhfgß a culprit._3ut theoieceswj reftrence to documents which WangWs letter occMjtm«l it destructive of all humour for levity. Th^^raek^^nd heartlessness of 'the manY *^ cMw*b«imoe;<>f.*n those palliative motives *Wch often teftipt men to sharply punished crimes, tae comfortable impunity he enjoys, andhis audacity • insbraving.thp^pt'ld^'scorn, come upon us in their = «iU force as We read, andrequrre that that we answer mm with something more serious than a few phrases , Iro"y;., are sorry that the task devolves upon us ; if, hke Ins brother swindlers in kindred enterprises, he had expiated his misdeeds in a gaol, he had been safe from us. But this is not so. He is safe ironrhis victims' pursuit, and evidently indifferent to their misery ; he is in the enjoyment of the distraction of continental traveland-the comforts of opulence^; he. is an ill example to men of weak prin<npleof how much.money can be dishonestly acfteS?. T l °^ u Ye7 „disagreeable consequences. Ours is the only hand that can reach him, and mere thT't ° may n°fc hinder the discha^eof