'Monte Carlo' Wells.

Manawatu Herald, 11 May 1899, Page 3

'Monte Carlo' Wells.

4 Monte Carlo,' the notorious convict, has just exchanged the severe life of Portland for the comfort and glamour of one of the big West-end hotel i. Sentenced at the Old Bailey in 1893 to eight years' penal servitude, he has now been liberated from durance vile.

His story is an astonishing one. Educated in France in the profession of a civil engineer, he earn a to England about 1885, and took out nearly 100 patents, after which he commenced to advertise for persons with capital to assist him in the working of them. It was his misuse of the sum*] thus obtained that brought him to the 0!d Bailey.

Purchasing two steam yachts, the Palais Royal and the Kettledrum, he bad them fitted out most elabqrafcely, and was in the habit of taking on board those who responded to his advertisement. Pointing oufc that the engines, boilers, etc, were worked on a new plan, of which he owned the v patent?, he induced the sister of one of our present judges of the High Court to place £15,860 in his hands', in relurn for which, after investment in the patents, he promised to pay her £855,000. Other large sums were obtained from other confiding people on similar promisea, amount- .-> ing altogether to £58,000. With this Wells betook himself to Montj Carlo to te3t a • system ' he had for breaking the bank. Wells' own story was that it was not with the money of his dupes that he gambled, but with £10,000 lent to him by an American gentleman whose name he refused to disclose. Wells was highly successful for a time at the tables, and was the origin of the song, • The Man who Broke the Bmk at Monte Carlo. 1 He says his share of his net winnings was £20,0Q0, and that he spent that sum on his patents and the fitting up of hn yachts to use as places for displaying his inventions. But an in* credulous jury disbelieved him, after the police had done him the disser L vice of arresting him and interrupt>ving his ♦ system ' at the tables — a \ system * which required six years tff> workout, by continuous attendance aO\ the tables from eleven in the morninjg until closing time. Wells contemplates another visit to the famous tables at which he oreated a sensation a few years ago.