INSURANCE SWINDLERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2810, 22 January 1908, Page 86

INSURANCE SWINDLERS.

By Chbisto^ebr BscKt' ■

Some curious arid true stories of Bow larga ' financial corporations are preyed, upon by un- ' scrupulous adventurers.' ' „ Insurance companies have received plenty of 'kicks' at feaisft in print, but aa they also-do'.very well in" the. matter, of ha'pence they can i afford:.to sit .tight and - let the_ kicking continue. The pnMic at large is well aware .that 1 insurance 'is very good,-, business, _ andu complains that gremiums are not" lower- than, they aa-e. , • ut there ia. another- sidet. .to -the shield, ana one that;, is not so of ten considered.Insurance' companies, especially life, fire, and marine, axe~ constantly forced to be oh. " their .guard against fraud of every, " desciiption. of all kinds attempt^ to victimise, them, and the -annals of insurance are inextricably tangled vwith plot and crime. - ' ' . Sometimes the swindle* suoeeeds. Where the, sum at stake is not a large one, the company may pay rather tharr litigateThere are many cases where there is strong suspicion of .fraud, yet no, t proof, -and! the yearly lasses to insurance companies all the world over from fraudulent claimmakers must aggregate, a very large sum. One of ihe most famous cases on record! of this description was- the Goss-Udder-zook. About 30 'yeaSns ago a man name'd 1 W." 8. Goas, an inhabitant of Baltimore, was reported to have been, burned tor death in a lonely cottage, where, he was supposed to have been ! cond!ueting\ secret* experiments' in the manufacture of artir ficial indiaarubberr The _body, ,of ?rhicßf the features -were . burnt beyond, all recO£-' nition, was identified by the -dead 1 maaat" wife, his" brother, and also his brother-f in-laiw," -whose ', name, was . UdderzookV Goss's life was insured for 25,000d01, ancl this sum the relatives claimed./ , But, scenting fraud, -.the._companies fused to pay. , brought, ami Mrs Gosr arid- h&v relatives - won _thef _ ca«e. Still, ±he inSoranoe comganies were not satisfied, . and;j»t Pinkerton's detectives to w«fi/.-Tfie sequel, was startling.-. i Goss,' who .was not dead at all— the corps*

having- been one substituted, — was in hiding, in a little village in Pennsylvania. (Whether because he wanted all the money for himeelf or because he was — as he afterwards asserted — afraid of what .would happen to him if the detectives did find that Goss was still alive, Udderzook went down to this village, took Goes for : a drive, deliberately shot him to death,- and hid the bod} 7 . But a few days later the body was accidentally discovered. Udderzook was arrested, his guilt proved, and the scoundrel met the fate; he so richly deserved. He went to the gallows protesting himself the victim of the insurance jompaniee! The boldest of British- insurance murderers was the infamous Palmer, known e& "the Rugeley. t •poisoner. "- This man idlled by poison no fewer than nine persons for the sake of insurance money — all but one being his nearest relations. These were bis own father, his wife and four children, hfs brother, his father-in-law, end a man named Cook. The policies upon the life of Mrs Palmer amounted to no less than £15,000, and this large sum was actually paid by the companies. Hfs brother's life was insured for £13,000, but by this time the companies had' begun "to smell a rat," and Tefused to pay the money. • The murderer to some extent gave himself away by not renewing toe application. Palmer j had also endeavoured to insure two other lives-^one, tha^ of his groom, for the sum of £25 ? 000, and also that of the postmaster "of Rugeley for £5000. Had these policies been effected no doubt they would have been the death-warrants of their owner®. ' . On the other side of the Atlantic the most shocking series 'of insurance crimes which' ever came 'to light was that for which the human monster, Herman Mudgett, better kno-wn by his alias of H. H. HoWs, was hanged 11 years ago. The writer was in >he States at the, time,, and well remembers the tremendous excitement caused by these abominable murders, which were committed for the sake of a comparatively paltry sum. Holmes was a native of New Hampshire, a man of decent family, and well edu- j catedr For some years he seems to have i earned an honest living, and from nis own account ■it was the fact of reading in a newspaper how easy it-was to defraud <- insurance companies that sta-rtea him on his career of crime. Holmes went into partnership with a man named Pitezel, who- called himself au inventor, but seems to have been a rery shady character, and- the two began to hatch schemes for swindling .the life insurance companies. The full details of blood^long- before the crimes ; for. which he was actually sentenced. At any Tate Pitezel -and he* between them succeeded an collecting considerable sums from the SsuSe Lnponies - without arousxn^ active suspicion. More than once Pitezd "died," and a. suitable corpse *»™g*»?* provided and the "necessary affidavits laving beS made out the^ insurance money was collected and divided. Bat SL-was extravagant, and got onto debt. >-Thafe sealed PitezeTs -&**.' In November 1893, -a F> U %,'- " o was issued through the Chicago office of he and his .partner .shared, and by means, ? chloroform did Pite»l to ' iut - Patezel ,had a wife fl*f 1 *^ 6 ? children.' Holme § . dctermmed, to make a clean sweep of them all, and-wit^ ghasUy deliberation carried out his plans O*e by one, on pretence of taking them to see their father,- 'the' ruffian > lured the children into his clutches^and killed them biding their poor little bodies in cellars "£ different towns. -One was so bumd in the cellar of a house m Toronto, Canada; one in Detroit, and one m Philadelphia. There remained only Mrs Pitezel. Fate saved her. A. man to whom Holmes had boasted of the way in which had "done" the insurance companies went to the secretary of one of them and informed Detective, were sent in search of Holmes. He bolted, but after -a long chase was caught. Even then he tried to brazen it out. He declared that Pitezel was in hiding and his children with -him. But the body of the child buried in Philadelphia was found,, and later nn the others. Holmes was convicted, and, in spite of appeals, which- gained him a postponement of his sentence for some months, was finally hanged in May, 1896. Similar - eases laighl-be cited by the score. Identical in' point, of time with tfle Holmes case was that of the man BJixt, who murdered a poor young dressmaker of Minneapolis — Miss Ging, — for the sake of her, five thousand dollar life insurance. Tho instigator of the crime was another scoundrel, by name Hayward. He was caught and hanged. Blixt saved his own life by turning States' evidence. A horrible feature of these life insurance frauds is the callousness which they seem to engender. The criminal, •havings once committed murder, seems to •lose all respect for the sanctity of human life. The Liverpool sisters were tried in 1884 for the killing of four persons, and the Dutch woman Van der Linden .was convicted at Leyden of murdering mo - fewer than 16 different people for the sake of their life insurances. Perhaps the mbst shocking part of the •business is the awful sacrifice of child 4ife in Great Britain and other countries !for the sake of the payments made at fteath by burial or friendly societies. ITor & penny a week such societies guarantee' a certain sum at death — three to five pounds, — presumably for funeral expenses. •In. certain" English towns 40 per cent, of tell the children so insured ' died before Teaching two years of age. Parliament legislated on the subject some years ago,

and it is to be hoped that this evil, though unhappily not extinct, has at any rate been largely abated. An act of 1774 — the most important of all statutes relating to life insurance, — prohibits the insurance of a life by a third party unless that party has an insurable interest in the other person's life. That is to say, no one can legally benefit under an insurance policy who has not actually suffered by the death of or damage to the "corpses" covered by that policy. Yet this statute is commonly and constantly evaded. Recently it came out in a Blackburn police court that a woman ■who Kept a lodging house in that town held over 40 insurance policies on the lives of strangers. She paid premiums to the value of 25s a week. Accident insurance companies have to be every bit as careful with regard to the claims made upon them as have life or fire companies. Not long ago a woman filed a claim against an American company, in which she was insured, alleging that she had fallen down upon a banana peel in Park street, New York, and so injured her spine that she had lost alj» sensation in her lower limbs. The physician who had examined her reported that apparently she was partly paralysed. She permitted needles to be runinto her legs without showing a sign of pain, and. I the company was preparing to pay up when an agent oori r another company who happened to be in the court recognised the plaintiff as having gained damages from his company on a similar pretext some years before. This led to an investigation, and it turned out that the woman had previously played the same trick upon at least half a dozen insurance and railway companies. Her little game was to soak her limbs in iced water justi before the doctor called. This deadened' sensation and enabled her to stand the needles without turning a hair. Some life policies contain a clause making them void if the insured commits suicide. A few years ago a case occurred ,in Australia, which goes to prove bow exceedingly careful a life insurance company has to be in distinguishing between j accident and suicide. An Australian meri chant who was insured for £2500 met his dreath in a most shocking manner. He had announced bis intention of going out for a day's shooting, and had gone to his room to change. Suddenly a loud report was heard, when, rushing in, his wife found him lying on the floor with the top of his head literally blown off. He was half dressed and barefooted, and his gun lay across his body. Everything pointed to the theory that he had taken his gun from its case to clean it, and that the trigger ba*l oanght in his_ underclothing and accidentally exploded the charge. ■There was nothing whateve to point to suicide, but the company sent an agent to make a formal examination. Looking at the gun the expert noticed that the rear trigger, the one that had been pulled, was black and gummy with oil which had exuded from the lock. A sudden idea came to him, and he turned to the dead body. There on the ixnder side of the ball of the great toe of the right foot was a small but distinct black mark. It was oil. That infinitesimal smear cost the dead man's heirs £2500. It was afterwards proved that the deceased was on the verge of ruin, and had planned to kill himself in such a way tHat his family would receive the insurance. He had arranged everything to give colour to the theory of accident, and had pressed the trigger with his toe. Arson is nowadays a comparatively rare .crime, though there is no doubt that once it was common enough, especially in America. The fact is that the detectives of the fire insurance companies are, as a rule, rather too smart for the swindlers. For instance, after a small fire at a London milliner's shop, in which one room was burnt out, a claim was made for eighteen new summer hats. The insurance detective called and made the customary examination of the ashes. Afterwards he called the owner of the place aside, and inquired how it was that he could only find four wire rings. Hats of this kind, it should be stated, are made upon the foundation of a ring of light wire. The claim" was not preased. Another fire was upon the premises of a wine merchant in a Lancashire town, and part of his claim was for a bin of ten dozen bottles of fine old port. The assessor, who had his doubts as to the existence of such liquor upon the claimant's premises, asked to be shown the site of the bin, and made an examination. Now, there are two portions of a bottle that are not easily destroyed even by fire — namely, the heavy base and the thick ring of glass around the cork. The assessor sifted the ashes, and could only find three dozen of each, and these, it seemed to him, were of hock or similar bottles rather than port. So he put his pen through, the whole claim, and the justice of his suspicions was proved by the fact that the wine merchant did not press it. Similar cases might be quoted, but these are enough to' show that an examination of the ashes by a competent assessor is, as a rule, quite sufficient to trap the fraudulent claim maker. Still fire insurance companies do suffer losses. A very ingenious series of frauds vraa worked in London a few yeara ago. A number of small fires occurred in various districts in South London, and in each case a room full of charred, fire-blackened furniture was shown. At last, by mere chance, the insurance adjuster, being called in to assess the extent of the damage, recognised the half-burnt chairs 'and tables as the very same on which lie had passed judgment in another house only five days previously ! It came out that the gang had a stock of charred furniture which they loaned one to another for the special purpose of defrauding the companies. The latter found this form, of swindle a very awkward one to deal with, for there having been no real fire the perpetrators could not be charped with arson, but only be indicted for obtaining money under false pretences. ,

Also in each case the amount claimed was so comparatively small that it did not pay the company to go to the expense- of criminal proceedings. Sutvuel Plimsolls efforts did more than ' anything else to prevent 'unscrupulous shipowners from murd-ering cre^i s and swindling marine insurance companies by sending out over-loaded and ill-found" cofllnships. Yet this form of crime is not yet extinct. A few years ago, during a winter which will be long remembered, no fewer than ten steamers disappeared at .«ea m one month. They were not wrecked in the ordinary sense of the term. They simply vanished, crews and all, in midAtlantic. There is grave suspicion attached to the owners of more than one of these" vessels. There is another case which you can read of in the annals of Lloyd's.* in which insurance was claimed upon a steamer which sank off the Lizard on her way home from South 'America. The greater part of the sum claimed was for her cargo, which was said to be valuable ore. However, the underwriters sent j divers to examine the wreck, and though the vessel had sunk in deepish water, they ! succeeded after some trouble in getting j down to her. The examination proved to j be well worth the money spent upon it. The valuable ore consisted of large chunks of ordinary stone. One can imagine tho ■wrath of the baffled swindler who, no doubt, had. strictly enjoined his captain to see that whatever happened took place in deep water ! For «heer impudence it would be hard to beat a fairly recent attempt to swindle some underwriters. A certain person insured a yacht, which we will call Albatross, for a large sum, and a few months later two .men, apparently in the last stag-es of exhaustion, were picked up in a battered rowing boat at the" mouth of the Thames. Th-ey told with much detail the story of the wreck of the Albatross, which, they alleged, had sunk twenty miles out, and • from which they had escaped with much difficulty. A' claim was made for the insurance money, but before it was paid investigation proved that the Albatross had never had any existence except on paper, and that her boat was one which had been hired from a port near the mouth of the , Thames. I In earlier days the swindles worked upon marine underwriters were absolutely barej faced. In spite of the fact that the j penalty was hanging, scores of ships were scuttled every yea-r. The most famous case was that of Captain Codling. One beautiful morning with the_ sea as calm as glass, people s on Brighton beach were amazed to see a vessel rapidly sinking a couple of miles -off. shore. Boatmen put off in a hurry toTTen-cler assistance, only to Be" received .with torrents of bad language by the captain of the sinking ship. The latter got out his boats, and with, his crew rowed ashore. A revenue outter managed to take the sinking ship in tow, but she sank before she reached 1 the shore. At the, investigation which followed a seaman •described how, by Cantain Codling's order, he had bored holes "in the ship's bottom with an* auger, and how, when the water did noi, come in rapidly enough to suit him, the captain had assisted it with an* axe. The wretched Codling was hanged, but his owners, the real culprits, escaped on some legal quibble. — The Grand Magazine. HUMAM BULLETS. •A SOLDIER'S FEELINGS IN BATTLE. Not often is so Thrilling a record of actual experiences in battle and assault— o; the ©ensations of mortal man- in those dim hours of Buffering and agony when, a&id the roar of the rifle, the infernal beat of the machine guns,,, and the screaming and concussion of the projectiles from the heavy artillery, the- storming columns surge forward to the assault, bursting their way through wire entaglements, breasting precipitous slopes, and closing with the enemy at last in final paroxysm of fury — given to the world as in this simple narrative of Lieutenant Sakurai in "Human Bullets: A Soldier's Story of Port Arthur," published by Constable. The narrator has known what war is in its most terrible form. He took part in those desperate attacks upon the outworks of Port Arthur when the Japanese dead "were piled mountains high and their blood flowed in rivers." He participated in the first general assault which ended in such tragic and complete failure in August, 1904. On that occasion he was repeatedly wounded and left for dead close up to the Russian lines. He owed his to the . gallantry and devotion of a humble comrade, and escaped with the amputation of bis* right arm after nearly a year in hospital. The psychological interest of the book lies in its account of the effect produced j upon the mind by the encounter with death. Captain Semenof, of the Russian Navy, who went through the battle- of Tsushima, has • to 7 d us that "apparently our feelings have strict limits for receiving external impressions. . . A j thing can be so painful that you feel nothing, so terrible that you fear nothing." j There is a point at which, sensation ceasies and every action becomes automatic. "Everything," says Lieutenant Sakurai, when telling the story of the general assault, "passed through my mind as in a dream — so my story nrust be something like picking out things from the dark." — Up a Ravine of Death. — To get into position for the assault tie storming 1 column had to march up a ravine of death. The ravine was filled with the dead and the wounded. "It^ looked to me_ like tlie highway to hell." Above it flared the searchlights and flashed the Russian guns ; it debouched on the lines of wire entanglement, many of which were charged with electricity that gave deadly shocks to the engineers and wire cutters Before the Japanese forlorn hope set out the final sacrament of the drinking of the cup of watei was administered to officers and to men. "This evening," %hey said., "ova yfaJna tastes like golden nectar.''

The forliorn hope assembled at the head J of this fearful ravin/j, and the 'colonel , called his m.en together .for < t^e final, ,-ex- , hortation > ' '* **" "Our brave- assaulting" -column,"' ~he said, "must be not simply a reaolved-to-die, but a sure-death detachment; si, as your father, am more grateful than "I i can express for .your gSfant fighting. Do ypur best, all of you!" Yes, we ' were all ready for death when leading" 1 Japan. Men going to battle, of couree,cannot expect to come back alive. But in this particular battle, to be ready for i death was not enough ;_what 'was r-equir&d j of jus-was a determination not to- fail to -die. " '"" -^ -«■• „ Sakurai turned to his colonel with the word- of farewell, and the column engaged. There was a fight- with bombs at the enemy's skirmish "The bombs sent from our side exploded finely, and the place became at once a conflagration, boards were flung about- sandbags hurst,., heads flew around/" legs" wetT?' torn*" off.'" The flames mingled , with the smoke lighted up our forces weirdly with a red glare, .and alb at once the battle line became confused. - J ■ ' - ' The enemy gave way before the furious onset. " Sakura-Ps company forward !',' was shouted in the confusion and infernal din. The company went forward. r^ eseJ n' l^ 1 9«as«d .M h.eai;\ the -.voice of Corporal Ito, Tvho "had been', at* my right hand. The bayonets gleaming in toe daTkness became fewer. The black masses of soldiers who had pushed their way on now became -a •■handful. All at onoe, as if struck by a club, I fell down sprawling on the ground. I was wounded, struck in my right hand. The : splendid magnesium light of the enemy | flashed out, showing the piled-up bodies of tlie dead, and I raised my wounded " i n. an<J looked at & broken at the wrist. — Blade Against Blade. — ' Bandaging it hurriedly, and {rrasnina- hi<? r,- vu t tt hmd - "* •?■»«:_ All of a sudden a stupendous sound as from another world' " rose" around about me. "Counter-assault!" A de tachment of the enemy . 6ur . rounded us in the twinkling of an eve and raising a cry of triumph. We made a stand and faced the enemy. Ure&t confusion and infernal butchery followed. Bayonets clashed against bayonete; the enemy brought up machine guns, and poured shot upon us pell : mell; the men on both sides fell, like grass. But I cannot give you a detailed account of the scene, because 1 was then in a. dazed condition. I felt myself occasionally cutting 'down the enemy. I remember a confused fight of white blade against white blade, the "rain and hail of shell, a desperate fight -here, a confused scuffle there. At last I grew so. hoarse that 1 could not shout any more. Suddenly my ©word broke with a, clash. _ , Wounded bhbe 'more 4 in "two places,' he fell to the ground, A wounded soldier who saw him fall grasped him by the hand and cried, "Lieutenant Sakurai! Let us'die' together." But the enemy left them for dead, and when day dawned I they were both alive. The private, who was shot through the right-* eye and "side, could move. With splendid -devotion, he went down the slope, through the enemy's lines, to bring up help Joi his. officer, Sakurai was left prostra^; ! alone among' the dead and dying, with no prospect of succour : This moment was' 1 " the most hallowed, the most sad,- and^the'^riiosfc 1 ' exasperating of my life. I repeated to myself Nelson's words, "Thank Heaven, I have.; done my duty !" * andi comforted myself " -with doomed to -failure*, t had done my whole life's work. . . A number of the Russians were going to and fro in the trenches firing at our- surviving*- men. ' They saw him move, and rushed at him ; but as they rushed, Five or six of our survivors encountered them, fought them, and all fell. And I, who had nothing but sure death to wait for, was saved' at the cost of my poor comrades' lives. — Caprices of Battle. — "There are many unforgettable touches, many strange illustrations of the caprice of battle : Why one is shot on the battlefield and the other not seems an inscrutable mystery. . . . Is it what has been called fate, or is it mere chance? . . A shot is an^oncanay Jibing* iizke,, aac apparition."'..^ ' * Taiposhan five or six of the retreating Russians were walking off in a leisurely way withojit^.^UMyin^jand^raMJ^giag.; their arms.'-^TMsSbeha-viour jiPe^tnoughfc very impudent, and each pi us aimed at them as carefully as in drill-ground practice. Yet they escaped. Homeric in its elemental simplicity and pathos is this little picture of the^meeting of two brothers, one 'mortally ißt:6unded,. on the battlefield : - „ ''- - ' The captain quickly came^iearlta-his brother, and 1 shouted, "KunioT' As soon as the dying man heard his dear brother's voice . . he opened his dim eyes in the midst of his hard breathing, gazed on his brother's face, ! grasped his hand firmly, with tears, and i for a while both were silent with emotion. The captain said presently, "Kunio, you have done well! Have you anything to "-say-?"^. And he wiped his dying' water into -his 1 'moutrr^from his "water-"* bottle. The younger brother faintly nodded and said, "Dear elder brother!" . Such are the iragie partings of war.. "You have done well" ; it will -be the final verdict of posterity upon the 30,000 Japanese dead who hold Port, Arthur for the island kiDgdom, and stand for ever the witnesses of her people's faith since they sealed t&at faith with, theii lifeblood..

J Those who look with horror upon waT and these scenes .of torment . and anguish, [ unutterable^hould remember that it Is "by 4 pain axjid travail that 'great nations are a brought to birth.. : To the : materialist, death in_ battle is 1 the end" ttt"existenoe,_ thSj blotfing"Jout of hund£e'^-sssJ^ousa2ids-~ I ©f~|levoteß lives amidf^eper^J^glu^nstaoce ' ' of horroT_a3id--tort^e^2S^^fe^': ov **".; spreads. o.ur^Kn~gli^s|3Ete?aH^^~o?^Tto-day,J 1 yet against ".it Hl^e'-gVeatemia&Vof our" race have always /ri^en in,-.Jete^t?=£-V-" "*•" It is because this^story Jcs^-a-^l^w4testi-I mony to the stxength'^of-'-ihfi^f^'ifitual I factor in man, aflcL-a^ne'vv 1 'assertion and .proof that his "best :' end' J^Jo eSd r well," - that it quickens, the |i:%aj^<£t|gji- arad: awakens a response in hearts that never" knew Japan.