FROM THE INSIDE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 235, 26 May 1932, Page 8

FROM THE INSIDE

STORIES OF CRIME INTERESTING REMINISCENCES AND COINCIDENCES IN REAL LIFE ANONYMOUS STORIES A warder, a confidence trickster, and a receiver tell, anonymously, some remarkable stories of criminals, in "Crime From the Inside," edited by "John Gregory," a pseudonym which is said to be. that of a famous journalist. • William Seaman, wbo murdered an old man and his servant in Whitechapel, went to his execution, says the warder, with no more concern than if he were taking a pleasant stroll. "I hear that I am to have. company on the scafiFold," he remarked when he heard that he was to be hanged between two other nrarderers, Milsom and Fowler, who had fought each other in the dock. Surveying them with a broad grin on the scaffold, he added: "This is the first time in my life I've ever acted the part of peacemaker." A minute later he was dead. Crippen, who murdeied Belle Elmore in Hilldrop Crescent, the warder describes as "a quiet, inoffensive little man who would not hurt a fly." There was something almost sacred abont his devotion to Ethel Le Neve, the "other woman" to whom he wrote from prison every day. So ingratiating was he that "there was hardly a warder who did not hope that Crippen would be reprievqd.". The author is amazed at the sentimental letters women write to murderers. Dr. Lamson, who poisoned his crippled brother-in-law for money, actually received proposals of marriage, although he was already married. One woman offered to wait if his sentence should be commuted to penal servitude; another placed her fortune at his disposal should he be able to bribe the governor and staff to let him escape. They did not know him; -thev had merely read about him in the Press! Steinie Morrison, !who probested his innocence of the murder of Leon Beron to the last, met a forger and swindler named Benson in Parkhurst, and told him of a wealthy widow who would finance any anpeal for his (Morrison's) release. When he was let out. deelares the warder, Benson in a few hours wheedled a fortune out of Irs hostess. With that fortune he started a W&ekly paper and a bogus Prisoners' Aid Society, cleverily combming the two, so that they formed the nucleus of an agitation calling for the release of Steinie Morrison. . . . He rented a suite of rooms in one of London's most expensive hotels, had a motor-car and liveried chauffeur daily in attendance, and to keep his hand in, ran a bogus bank, which enabled him to supplement the widow's cheques by some pi'ofitable swindling. Made Hell For Himself When Morrison learned how this man had "double-crossed" him he played havoc with the prison rules, and in making hell for himself made hell for many others. Finally, he took to a hunger strike, believing that he would be released if only he kept it up sufficiently long. When he found that the authorities were ndamant, he called the strike oif, but it was too late. The passionate, evil, tumultuous and surging brain and the starved body could not be held together, and he died in delirium. But it has never been forgotten that the last sane words he spoke took the form of another fierce. profcestation of innocence. A London cashier earning £2 a week embezzled £4,000 and hid it, arguing that it was better to undergo five years' penal servitude and earn that sum than to go on working all his life and have nothing to show at the end of it. On his release he crossed from Dover to Calais, and half-way across two Scotland Yard detectives who were watching him found him forcing a panel in one. of the cabins. He was not only rearrested; the £4,000 he had hidden in this adroit way was no longer there. The detectives consulted the captain : "The ship wasn't built then," he explained, with a laugh. "No doubt your man hid the money in the former one, but it was broken up three years ago and this put into commission in its place. We took its name because it was lucky." When they passed the information on to the ex-convict he broke down and cried like a child. . . . What was the use of liberty in such circumstances? He answered the question by committing suicide by drowning in thOjThames six weeks later. Remarkable Coincidences. The long arm of coincidence is often aetive in crime. The sister of •a warder paying a visit to his prison recognised in one of the convicts the son she believed to be working on a farm in Queensland. A burglar was identified by a warder as the man who had inflicted on his father fatal injuries. An official of the Prisoners' Aid Society saw in the Strand one night an ex-convict who had been an army officer, and the guest of the highest nobility and even royalty; now "down and out" he was opening a carriage door for a lady and gentleman coming out of the Gaiety Theatre. They ignored him. He burst into tears: — "Did you see them?" he asked, speaking at last. "See whom?" said the missioner. "Those . two — the carriage," he whispered, in a perky voice. "I'm glad they didn't tip me, for had they done so the girl might have recognised her father." Once, when it was announced that a famous prima donna was to sing at a prison concert, one of the convicts pleaded that he should be allowed to remain in his cell. The reason was that the convict, who had been a

power in financial circles and entertained lavishly at his town and country houses, had frequently paid that prima donna fees of 200 guineas to sing to his guests! He did not want to risk her recognising him in the audience. Fraudulent Financiers. Fraudulent financiers, says the warder, are usually eager to resume their swindling; what fascinates them is not so much the actkal money they get as the way in which they get it. In the'ease of one such there was a gap of only six weeks between his first and second conviction, but in

£1,000. He confessed that he had composed the circular in his cell shortly before his release, and all he had to do was go to a printer in the city with whom he had been friendly in his more prosperous days. From the printer he had borrowed the necessary postage, and as he was able to dispatch five hundred of the circulars that same evening he was in funds by the end of the week. Convicts will do desperate things to get tobacco. One very rich man, sentenced for a disgraceful offence, says the warder, offered a warder £500 for a packet, and when it was refused doubled the bribe and tried to corrupt the governor himself. A burgier who escaped from Dartmoor by attacking two warders was found 24 hours later sitting on a riverbank placidly smoking a cigarette, and surrendered without resistance. "I knew I was certain to be caught," he said, "but I wanted a smoke, and as soon as I had a smoke I was quite ready to corqe. back, even to a flogging.'' Another convict made repeated attempts to escape when he learned from a former fellow-convict that someone was on the track of £10,000 worth of jewels which he had buried in a certain garden to await his release. • . •