A CLEVER IMPOSTOR.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3975, 28 November 1891, Page 2

A CLEVER IMPOSTOR.

How to Push a fiosrui Invention. .^

The civil case of Wilson y Macdonald, which was concluded in the Supreme Court on Wednesday after* noon, had its origin in a set of Very:strange circumstances. It will be remembered that both parties to the suit were associated m trying to " boom " a torpedo boat invented by a person named Sylvester Denis Egan, the advances made to whom , formed the subject of dispute. Thii Egan appears to have been fertile of resource, plausible of addr. ss, bold and unscrupulous of expedient, and to have succeeded in | duping some of the smartest business j men in this oity and elsewhere. ' tie solved the problem of how to live prosperously by onVs wits. The Btory of his misdoings reads like romance. In England he married a very worthy lady who kept a board* ing house, and who brought him £SOO, and slifi accompanied him to Wellington, where ho worked for some time as a stoker, and later as an engineer. He also oooupTedhiinself less reputably. That is to say, he brought himself within the meshes of the criminal law, and served at least one period in gaol, if not more. After this he turned his attention, to,„ artistic and daring imposture!. He-' suddenly burst upon the public as the inventor of a torpedo motor which was to completely eclipse Brennan's efforts in the same direction, and to prove quite a mint to those who were fortunate enough to acquire an inteJtst in it. No one appears to have known of his antecedents, and baeineßß men were soon found to take him up. Hia boat he sold no less than four times to separate and distinct individuals for good round sums, and all the time ha was also disposing of imaginary,sharei in her for £5 and £lO notes to young •• fellows about town. The first person to buy the boat straight out was a very prominent public man, who not only gave Egan £l5O for her, but allowed him to build her in bis store and supplied him with the necessary materials. One day a gentleman oame "> to the store and left there an overcoat containing a pair of gloves in one of the pockets. That overcoat never more was heard of. Bub Mr Egan turned up with one of the gloves, which he brought to his patron as ■ :• proof presumptive that as he hid found it in the store its owner must be some scheming rogue who had ' been hiding there to learn the secrets of the wonderful invention. He wal therefore anxious that the.police"' should be communicated with and laid on the trail. The suggestion was acted upon and Detective Chrystal appeared npon the scene. He promptly The merchant in alarm assembled some trusty friends and proceeded to the store to seize the boat. Egan, however, haying somehow heard of the intention, confronted them, and in a theatrical manner to blow out the btains of tab : , first man who dared to enter. The threat had the desired effect, and he held the fort and shifted his boat. ; *-, Several other sales were effected and and then Mr Kennedy fell into the toils. Mr Macdonald represented a syndicate who agreed to push the affair in England by sending Egan Home. He accordingly was shipped in the Kuapehu in June, .1889, as as. ; sislant engineer, and in this way reaohed London. On arriving there the Customß authorities wished to . inspect the case containing the* al«

leged patent, whereupon lie flew into a violent rage, declared that it was the seoret of his life, that he was bringing it to London expressly with a view to its Bale to the Admiralty, and rather than permit it to be scruS inised by vulgar eyes he would ahoot the man who dared to open the case. Customs offioials told him th» - cast would not be opened if he obtained an order to that effect

from the Admiralty. Meantime the; would hold it. Egan accordingly repaired to the Admiralty, and by means of his representations, got an official authority for the Custom! Department to pass the case until the Admiralty had seen it. .He was in no hurry, however, to present the note. It bore the offloial stamp,, and it better suited Mr Egan's artful purpose to allow his boat to remain

in detention while he travelled the countryand interviewed distinguished persons, armed with the Admiralty paper, which lent a pleasing air of verismiluude to his statement that the naval authorities were treating , .' 1 for the purchase of the corpedo motor. In this way he gained interview *"* with Sir William Jervois, Admiral Fairfax, and other gentlemen of position, obtained their advice, and made use of their names. Qfferscame in upoa Wilson, who was the fjgenii of the New Zealand syndicate, but he, ; was so dazzled by the splendour of the prospects as' depiqted by figaqi k and of the rising value of his qwn eighth share in the affair that bo bluntly refused one offer of ££|QG> foe a tenth, and another offer of 4jsoQ for an eighth interest. JVJoanwbih} Egan still Had time left for Boftop dalliance. He advertised in tI)Q Matrimonial Ne\ys for a wife, and actually captured one with a dot of £IOO, having first assured her that he was the owner of a gold mine in New Zealand, from which he regularly received princely dividends. Having informed Air Wilson that he was meditating a trip' to Russia, as the Czar was*- likely 10 giro £IOO,OOO at least for the sole rights to the invention, he crossed over to France bik! spent a pleasure honeymoon. The Czar of Russia was quite forgotten. Shortly after the return of the happy pair to England the bride discovered that her spouse already had a wifo" in New Zealand, and she immediately prosecuted him for bigamy.- case, hoWeVqr; broke 1 clowb, through wantfof evicjonce ffo'nj flew Zealand. Nothing daunted, th/s intrepid Egan married again, whether as, tb.e result pf freely advertising cannot bo stated, bat at any rate disaster again fallowed hard upon hia heels., Tho new wife found ;. that she bad a Viganwus husband, |u4 '

he was pgain brought op at the Old Bailey, and this time it is said he was connoted, but we cannot vouch for the fact. Thus ends this "strange eventful history." %e castles in Spain reared upon the prospective success of the wonderful motor have vanished into thin air, leaving not a wrack behind, and many a one in Wellington—some of them few wonld ever suspect of baring ■ been bad—are considerably the poorer for making his acquain-tance.-—Times.