AN AMAZING CAREER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 257, 30 April 1912, Page 7

AN AMAZING CAREER.

RACECOURSE SHARPER'S END. STRANGE DUAL PERSONALITY. When a motor car knocked down an ■elderly, well-dressed gentlemanly man in Chapel street, Melbourne, last week, little did the passers-by who lifted the stricken victim know that they were helping to the hospital one of the men who was for years a worry and a trouble to the detective police. He died from fracture of the skull. The victim was Frederick William Ogle, better known as "Lamerce," who did what no judge, no Cabinet, and no Governor has ever done in the history of Victoria, in the mitigation and the curtailment of sentences imposed upon criminals by the courts of the State. Himself", one- of the most accomplished criminals of the last generation, he secured early release for numbers of similar scoundrels.

A wine and spirit merchant, whose busine.es extended throughout the North of Ireland, and who had his headquarters in Belfast, brought up his eldest son to carry it on when he should retire. The son was precocious, bright, nay brilliant. He was the white-haired boy of his teachers, and the pride of his public school. It was only those who studied him carefully who realised that his astounding cleverness was most superficial; that while his brain was amazingly receptive, it had an almost startling faculty for forgetting. The heroworshipping father had, however, been too generous in unloosening the pursestrings, and the heir to a lucrative business speedily developed extravagant habits.

He lived luxuriously, and soon had to cudgel his inventive wits to keep out of the hands of his creditors. From Belfast he disappeared and was next heard of in Vietoria. Ogle had married the daughter of the Dutch Consul in Belfast, and had, when he embarked upon a life of villain}', adopted his wife's name. By attending country race meetings, by running illicit and illegal games, by "stiffening" horses, etc., lie was able to live well, and to maintain a cosy villa for his wife and children down ,at St. Kilda. His means of livelihood were most earefully screened from the inmates of his home. He devoted his leisure moments to a study of philosophy, ■to reading books of travel, and to elaborate a new theory of cosmic attraction.

On the racecouse he would cease from plundering credulous country people to remark that the Book of Proverbs was the. most liberal education any man could require. He was a faithful attendant at the church on Sundays. The man appeared to have two personalities, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Through all his wrong-doing he was philosophical. On numerous occasions, when fortune went against him on country courses he bolted with his bag and was often mobbed for "welshing." Spells in gaol did not in any way break his nerve. He made Swanston street his special roving ground. Dressed very nattily and with a theatrical eye for the deceptive value of appearance, he would stroll up and down, with his moustache waxed like that of a military man, and casually scrutinising the passers-by. Instinct appeared to tell him which amongst the men from out-back he could safely approach with every hope of landing a big stake. Rarely, indeed, did he make a mistake.

The Swanston street beat was reckoned to be worth at least £IOOO a year to him. On one occasion he made a fly at bigger game. He ingratiated himself with people in high places, and was actually proposed as a member of the Melbourne Club. Two days before the ballot the hand of the law descended heavily on his shoulders, and took him away to his Majesty's Club. Lamerce outside saw a ready road to wealth with the co-operation of a relative who was serving a sentence in Pentridge for forgery. His quick brain conceived a plan for lifting round sums of money from the friends of prisoners who wanted their sentences shortened. The two put their heads together, and in a few weeks' time the man who got 18 months could, by sufficient payment, get his Telease in a year, or, if given three years, get out in perhaps eighteen months.

This new gold mine was yielding huge dividends, and Lameree was well on the way to amassing a competency, when a judge,' walking down Collins street one day, espied a man whom he knew he had sentenced to two years for assault and robbery, who was enjoying liberty in six months. He instituted enquiries, and an examination of the documentary orders and of the prison book were made. The relative was removed to another division, and Lameree had to buy a roulette table and go back to the .racecourse. He managed to keep beyond the grasp of the police till he got in touch ■with four clever bagsmen in Sydney, and promptly formed what is known aa "The Long Firm." They rented a big house. Lameree ordered furniture and fittings and clothing. The firm sold these, and had quite a gay time until detectives arrived instead of shop vans, and charged them with conspiracy, and put them in Darlinghurst. His last sentence kept him in gaol until the end of 1911. From then until the time of his death he kept out of the clutches of the law. If he had been honest he could, with his address, brains and courage, have scaled to any height. As it was, he died in the Alfred Hospital, unknown, unhonored and unsung, and beneath 'his photo in the album of the C.I. Department appeps the laconic legend: "Bun dotrn by a motor."