MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 277, 25 March 1848, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

The United Service Gazette asserts that the Dockyard Battalions will cost £80,000, an excess of 4;60,000 above the grant made by Parliament. Gibson's second statue of Huskisson, recently erected in Canning-place, Liverpool, is of bronze, and stands nine feet high. The left hand, with the fingers partially extended, is, raised towards the head, while the right holds a docnment rolled up, and resting on the tbigb. Critics compare it with Chantrey's Canning, Flaxman's Sir Joshut Reyooldi,

and Roubiliac's Sir Isaac Newton. It is certainly a iiue work. Gibson's first statue of Hnskisson, ia the .St. James's Cemetery, is pf marble. The recent unexpected change in the Spanish ministry, now the creatures of France, cost Louis Phillippe's private exchequer not less than £48,000. A curious instance of affection in the gazelle, which ended fatally, took place last week, at the country residence of Baron Gauci, in this island. A female gazelle having suddenly died from something it had eaten, the male stood over the dead body of his mate, butting everybody who attempted to touch it, then, suddenly making a spring, struck his head against a wall, and fell dead at the side of his companion. — Malta Times. The Story of a Forger. — " Charles Price was one of those men whose abilities are employed in defrauding. At the age of seventeen he left his home to seek a fortune, knd threw himself on the world with {he determination to live by it. He soon learned to play many parts. Now a comedian, and now a gentleman's servant. At one time a rogue, and the companion of rogues : and then a fraudulent brewer or a fraudulent bankrupt. Great talent was employed in enormous crimes ; and great evil was the result. After trying his hand as a lottery-office keeper, stock broker, and gambler, he attained sufficient importance to grace a work called the Swindlers' Chronicle. From this the step was easy to the JSewgate Calendar; and he embarked in a bold, skilful, and resolute career of fraud on the bank. His only confidant was his mistress. He practised engraving till he became a proficient. He made his own ink. He manufactured his own paper. With a private press he worked his own notes ; and he counterfeited the signatures of the cashiers until the resemblance was complete. Master of all that could successfully deceive, he defied alike fortune and the bank directors ; and even these operations in his own house were transacted in a disguise sufficient to baffle the most penetrating. About the year 1780 a note was brought to the bank for payment. So complete were all its parts — so masterly the engraving — so correct the signatures — so skilful the water-mark, that it was I promptly paid ; and only discovered to be a forgery when it reached a particular department. From that period forged paper continued to be presented, especially at the time of lottery drawing. Consultations were held with, the police ; plans were laid to ensure detection ; every effort was made to trace the forger. Clarke, the Forrester of his day, went, like a sluth-hound, on the track ; ior in those days the expressive word ' bloodmoney' was known. Up to a certain point there was little difficulty; but beyond this the most consummate art defied the ingenuity of the officer. In whatever way the notes came, the train of discovery always paused at the lottery office. Advertisements offering large rewards were circulated ; but the unknown forger baffled detection, at the expense of the Corporation. " Among other advertisements in thsDaify Advertiser, in 1780, might be seen one for a servant ; to which an answer was sent by a young man, in the employment of a musicalinstrument maker, who, some time after, was called upon by a coachman, and informed that the advertiser was waiting in a coach to see the candidate for the situation. The young man went, and was desired to enter the conveyance — where he saw a person with something of the appearance of a foreigner, sixty or seventy years old, apparently troubled with the gout, as some yards of flannel were wrapped around his legs. A camblet sartout was buttoned round his mouth ; a large patch placed over his left eye ; and nearly every part of his face was concealed. He affected much infirmity, and a faint hectic cough ; and invariably presented the patched side to the view of the servant. After some conversation, in the course of which he represented himself as guardian to a young nobleman of great fortune, the interview concluded with the engagement of the applicant ; and the new servant was directed to call on Mr. Brank — the name by which he designated himself — at 29 Titchfield-street, Oxford-street. At this interview Brank inveighed against his whimsical ward for his love of speculating in lottery tickets, and told the servant that his principal duty would be to purchase them. After one or two meetings, at each of which Brank kept his iace muffled, he handed a £40 and £20 bank-note ; told the servant to be very careful not to lose them ; and directed him to buy lottery-tickets at separate offices. The youug man went, fulfilled his instructions, and at the. moment he was returning, was suddenly called by his employer from the other side of the street, congratulated on his rapidity, and then told to go to various offices in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, and purchase more shares. To do this £400 in Bank of England notes were handed him, and the wishes of the mysterious Mr. Brank were sa. tisfftctojrily effected. These scenes were con- '

tinually enacted. Notes to a large amount were thus circulated ; lottery-tickets purchased: and Mr.* Brank, always in a coacb, with his face studiously concealed, ready on <the spot to receive them. The surprise of the servant was somewhat excited ; but had he known that from the period he left his master to purchase the tickets, one female figure accompanied all his movements ; that when he entered the offices, it waited at the door, peered cautiously in at the window, hovered round him like a second shadow, watched him carefully, and never left him until once more he was in the company of his employer, that surprise would have been greatly excited. Again and again were these extraordinary scenes rehearsed ; again and again were lottery-tickets procured ; and again and again was the servant allowed only to see the patched side of his master's face. At last the Bank obtained a clue, and the servant was taken into custody, his simple statement disregarded, "and his person incarcerated. The directors imagined that at last they had secured the actor in so many parts ; that the flood of forged notes which had inundated the establishment would cease. Their hopes proved fallacious, and it was found that the ' Old Patch* .had been sufficiently clever to baffle the Bank directors. The house in Titchfield-street was searched ; but Mr. Brank had deserted it. The servant was discharged from custody, with a present of £20 ; the advertisements re-appeared ; rewards again freely offered ; but in vain. The extraordinary Mr. Brank remained as inaccessible as ever, and the forgeries as usual became more plentiful about the period of the lotteries. But the mind of this man — a master in the art of crime — invented a new method of fraud. In 1785, the public prints report the following : — ' On the 18th December, £10 was paid into the Bank, for which the clerk, as usual, gave a ticket to receive a bank-note of equal value. This ticket ought to have been carried immediately to the cashier, instead of which the bearer took it home, and curiously added a 0 to the original sum, and returning, presented it so altered to the cashier, for which he received a note of £100. In the evening, the clerks found a deficiency in the accounts ; and on examining the tickets of the day, not only that but two others were discovered to have been obtained in the same manner. In the one the figure 1 was altered to 4, and in another to 5, by which the artist received, upon the whole, near £1,000.' The contriver of this ingenious fraud proved to be the same individual who had so long baffled the police ; but in a short time his career was closed. One of the notes given in pledge for costly articles of plate, with which he graced expensive entertainments, was traced to the silversmith, and after innumerable disguises, the end of Charles Price was fast approaching. With great ingenuity he procured the destruction of his implements, through the agency of his mistress, notwithstanding the acuteness of the police. The assurance of this man in the safety of his transformations had been complete. It has been seen that his accomplice in crime watched the person he employed, while Price was wai'ing close to the spot. Had any suspicious appearance occurred at -the lotteryoffice, she^ would immediately have given a signal to Price, who would have torn off his dress as * Old Patch,' and appeared in his own character. He seems to have been thoroughly known as ' Pateh 1 (from the covering of his eye), but his identity with Price, the lot-tery-office keeper and stock-jobber, was not suspected. His end-was worthy his life. He employed his son to procure the necessary implements of destruction ; and the following morning he was found hanging. A jury sate upon the body, on which the old barbaric custom was enacted ; and midnight witnessed the lonely cross-road receive the remains of the forger." — (Francis' History of the Bank of England.)