BLACKMAILERS WHO PREY UPON FINANCIERS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9088, 5 March 1908, Page 2

BLACKMAILERS WHO PREY UPON FINANCIERS.

The charge which \vas_ recently brought hv Mr Solly a oel against Frauz Yon Veltheim,. who received a life sentence for endeavouring to obtain £IO,OOO by threats, nas created an immense amount of interest. Mr Ernest T. Hooley, who made a huge fortune in the days of the cycle “boom,” once said, “I can hold my own with financiers, and with anyone in the city, but there is one creature who always gets the better -of me—the blackmailer. M xie also said that he had paid away m blackmail no iSss a sum than £200,000. * Mr Jay Gould paid even a larger sum than this to blackmailers. ■ In fact;, rocoiuts were found after his death which showed that during his last 20 years he had paid away the great sum of £480,000 to various persons who had persecuted him. ihese receipts were carefully placed under the special heading ox “Elackmai-, a heading which was as necessary as * auv other in his system of filing correspondence. ' , . When a search was made througn Mr Woolf Joel’s papers after his assassination in his j-oifice at Johannesburg it was discovered that he had suffered to a large extent from the extortions of blackmailers. Ibe amount which was demanded at the pistol’s point was £SOOO, and his death is said to have resulted as a consequence of his refusal to submit to further exactious. " Some months ago one of tna -eadlug tradesmen in the West End or Loudon was shot dead by a blacKmailsr. When the private correspondence of this wealthy man of commerce was examined, it showed, that blackmail had been carried on xor a large number of years by various persons who had extracted large sums. ~, T It is not long since a wealthy London city man was heavily blackmailed by two men who said they were acquainted with some a.leged fact s'iu his early life. One man was a shady reporter, and he wrote a book which attacked the character aud methods of the financier, _wno controlled an enormous business concern. His victim paid him a large sum of money for the copyright of this book, but this aud further blackmailing s 'schemes brought him into the hands of the police. Scores of well-known London men have been the victims of such blackmailers. Quite a trade has sprung up in producing books which __ are. never intended to bo placed ..beiOie the public. The books are written simply for the purpose of extracting mone.v from some wealthy man vri ,o is willing to purchase trie whole edition for a large sum. . It is not only ths living who suiter from these 'rapacious creatures. There are a largo number of ghouls whose occupation consists in unearthing unsavoury information regarding great personages. Ac the death or such a great personage the blackmailer promptly produces a biogrripby of information to of the deceased man’s familv. To a large extent these consist of lies; still the family often pjavs dear.y in order that tnc oiographies may be suppressed. Mr Rockefeller has bad several sensational escapes from death P-t the hands of the blackmailer, while Mi Russell Sage escaped from three attempts on his life —the last at temp l cost his secretary and three clerks their lives while defending him. Mr A. T. Stewart, the New iork millionaire, was practically harried to death by scoundrels of this kind. Even his death did not put an end to the persecution, for some blackmailers carried bis body from the gmv6 aud held it until his family had paid a ransom of £IOO,OOO. That great Chicago pork-packer, Mr Cudahy, was a favourite target of the blackmailer. When his life was threatened upon one occasion he took extraordinary in order to circumvent the plots against him. He was able to preserve his life, but |his 13-year son was kidnapped from school. The blackmailer orgiually baa demanded a sum of SoO.COO in consequence of his sparing Mr Cudahy s life. He sent a further demand for this sum, aud stated that unless it was complied with immediately the lad’s eyes should be burned out and vitriol thrown over his face There is’little doubt that the thereat would have been carried out bad not Mr Cudahy complied with the demand.