CAUTION TO IMPOSTERS.

Southland Times, Issue 959, 29 May 1868, Page 3

CAUTION TO IMPOSTERS.

At the Mansion-house, on March 12 a man named * Charles Brown was sentenced to 21 days' hard labour as an impostor. He pretended to fall dead somewhere in the Poultry, and a police-officer took him in a cab to Bartholomew's Hospital* What happened can best be told in the words of the constable. "On the road to the hospital the prisoner gave three gulps, and stretched himself out as if he was dead. On reaching the Hospital he gave three more gulps, and again stretched himself out. The bouse surgeon came to the cab door and asked what was the matter. I said, ' I think he is dead.' The surgeon said, ' Oh, no, he is not.' A stretcher was brought, aud he was taken inside. He then appeared to be a little better, and they asked him several times if he could talk. In reply he made dumb motions to indicate that he had fallen from a great height and he held up three fingers as if to signify that be had broken three ribs. The physician was sent for, and they then took off his clothes and found a large piece of sticking plaister on his side, which they took off. On being again asked if he could speak, i he gave three more ' gulps ' and lay still, as if dead. The doctors thereupon ordered him to be strapped tc the stretcher, and got out a galvanic battery, which tbey applied to him. On receiving the shock he began to ' holler ' out, said he could talk now, and begged them to desist. They said if he could not they would give him a little more. He was then released aud said, ' If you had the pain I bave got in my back you would not serve me like this.' He pretended he could not put on his clothes, whereupon the doctor gave him another shock of the battery, which had the effect of making him put on his clothes in two minutes and run off. 1 caught him and took him to the station."