THE PEREGRINATIONS OF PRADO. A SEDUCTIVE SWINDLER. London, November 9.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 331, 5 January 1889, Page 4

THE PEREGRINATIONS OF PR A DO. A SEDUCTIVE SWINDLER. London, November 9.

It rains swindlers in Paris jusb now. They crop up on every side. Pranzini's sanguinary villainies had barely been unmasked before Allmeyer's burglarious eccentricities v/eie attracting crowds to the Courts, and now Paris— tout Paris — can talk only of Prado— le (/ravel Prado! Much lias been hdid and written about this latest candidate for the gallows, but his history hat not yet been iully and properly told. "He is," says a Paris correspondent of the " Globe," " called Pi ado, but what his real name is nobody but himself knowb. All the police have been able to discover on this head is that he possesses a list of distinguished aliases, ?uch, for example, as Prado y Rido, Count IVfendoza, Marquis do Haro, Due de Grasset, and Comte Linska de Castillon. The judicial inveotigation into his career does not go back further than 1879, when all authentic trace of him is lost. At that epoch he was at Madrid, where ho had just married a young lady of good family, Dolores Garcia y Marcillo, who brought him a dot of £15,000. He was then living under the name of Comte Linska, but ho admits that the papers he furnished for the marriage were forgeries. Previously to the above date all wo know of him is, what he condescends io tell us. According to his own story, his birth was secret and tragic. He was biought up at l-hjon by an elderly woman who always wore mourning, and who often took him to the cemetery to pray over a tomb which fhe said contained the remains o\ his mother. On the deathjjpf that mysterious personage lie broke operi'her iron safe and found in it an album bearing the name ot his parents, accompanied by an injunction never to reveal it, and he swears he never will, <"'ome what may. lie began his peregrinations at the early age of 14. He visited successively India, China and America. On returning to Eur^ne in 1j872, he joined the avmy of Don Cailos, and became lieutenant. He is fond of dwelling on his military exploits. He says he took part in the siege of San Sebastian,^was arrested as a spy, and but for the governor's daughter, who fell in love with him, he would have been shot. Shortly after he was wounded in an engagement, and sent to the ambulance. Here he again plaj'ed Don Juan with success. The nurse who attended him was an English lady of illustrious family, and, as soon as he was cuied, he cariied her oil and married her. The happy couple travelled some time in Palestine, but on returning home his wife fell ill and died. Recovering from his grief he went to Havana, where, tailing short of money, he robbed a pawnbroker of ,€1,500, with which .sum he repaiied to Peru. Two months later he again came back to Spain, rejoined the Cadists, and shared in the final combats ol the insurrection. He next turned up at. Lima, Avheie he paid court to the daughter of a merchant and finally obtained her heart ond fortune. He soon gambled her dot away, and got involved in suspicious transactions, which obliged him leaving the country to escape unpleasant consequence 5 ". His wife died o£ a broken heart and left a child, which soon followed her to the grave. Our &orry hero took refuge in Lisbon. Here he once more found himself penniless, bat he was not , long in poverty. He made the acquaintance of a jeweller, and biokeinto his shop twice. The first time he carried oil £2,000 in jewels, but on the second night he touched nothing, and contented hrm- ; self with leaving a letter on the table facetiously advising his friend to "take better care of his property. "' After a voyage to Madagascar and back he made his re-ap-pearance in Madrid. He started a private gambling house, which was patronised l<y all the f/recs of the town. Ho managed to outdo them, and bolted with the stakes, amounting to £8,000. *'lt was the only money 1 ever stole with pleasure," he remaikcd, "for I was merely robbing the robber '' It was at this period that, under the name ot Comte Lin&ka, he got married to Dolores Garcia y Marcillo, who is still living in the Spanish capital in a sta^e of abjeco misery. Having squandered her dowry away, ho decided to come to Paris, the paradise of die culler d'indus'rie. Here he captivated several ladies of easy virtue, out of whom he succeeded in making a living. Among them was one Eugenio Forestier, who plays a conspicuous role in this romance of crime. She was separated from her husband, and wa3 then in the keeping of a banker -well known for his amorous proclivities. Eventually, howevei, she lost her lover. Prado continued to reside with her, but her little fortune was soon swallowed up, and both were reduced to indigence. He now turned his attention in another direction, and was not long in discovering a fresh victim. Foremost among the frail creatureb who frequent the Eden Concert Hall was Marie Aguetant— a young brunette covered with diamonds and pearls, which at once aroused his cupidity. Ho proposed to her, wat. accepted, and, according to the indictment, had no sooner entered her apartment in tho Rue Caumartin than he pounced on her, cut her throat with a razor, and made oft' with her jewels. The murder took place so far back as January, 1886, but it was not till nearly two years later that the perpetiator was arrested, and that, too, in quite an unexpected manner. In the mean- I time, on the morrow of the crime he escaped onco more to Madrid, where he sold the stolen property, and then came back to Bordeaux. He wrote to his old mistress, Eugenie Forestier. to come and share his j fortune with him, and sho consented. He took a villa in the suburbs cf that city, belonging to a widow lady named Couronneau, to whom he represented himself as a Spanish nobleman, and whose daughter Mauricette he ypeedily seduced. Shortly after his> arrival a robbery was made at n joweller's. The police were put on the track, and judge of their surprise on finding some of the jewels on the persons of Eugenie Forestier and Mauricette Couronneau, the mistresses of tho illustrious hidalgo. Needless to say they were immediately placed under lock

and key, but Pi ado was, of course, not to be found anywhere. We now come to the way in which he eventually fell into the clutches of justice and wh eh led to his identification as the mysterious murderer of tho RueCaumartin, who at one time was believed to be Pranzini. A well-dressed man was caught in the act of stealing a quantity of diamonds from the room of a foreign dealer staying at an hotel in the Cours-la-Reine. 3e tried to escape by firing a revolver at the waiter, but after a long chase ho was sately lodged at Mazas. He turned out to be none other than the übiquitous Prado. At the same time his two mistresses named above were brought to Paris to undergo examination by the juge cV instruction. While in prison Mauricette Couronneau gave birth to a boy, of which Prado was the father. Eugenie Forestier condoled with her, and uttered suspicious words. " What do you mean ?" asked the former. "I mean," was the reply, "that the father of your child is a murderer, but I have sworn never to reveal the crime." However, pressed by the chaplain and the judge, she consonted to make a clean breast of it. She forthwith related how Prado came home on the night of the deed, how ho washed his bloody hands, how he burned his stained clothes, and how he tried to shoot her when he perceived that she had guessed his guilt. The stolen jewels were found at Madrid, partly at the pawnbroker's and partly at a secondhand dealer's, and Prado was recognised as the person who got rid of them. He himself does not deny this, but says he stole them in a railway cariiage from a man who must have been the real murderer. He likewise denies the confession of Eugenie Forestier, whom he accuses of inventing her story out of pure jealousy.