"I'm nearly done," said Jamie.

The cash drawer lay beside him ; at a glance he saw the bills were there, sufficient for his purpose. He took up four rolls, each one labeled "$5000" on the paper band. Then he laid them on the desk again. He opened the day-book to make the necessary false entry. Which account was least likely to be drawn upon? Jamie turned the leaves rapidly.

"James Bowdoin's Sons." Not that. "The Maine Lady." He took up the pen, started to make the entry; then dashed it to the floor, burying his face in his hands.

He could not do it. The old bookkeeper's whole life cried out against a sin like that. To falsify the books! Closing the ledger, he took up the cash drawer and started for the safe. watchman came in again.

"Done?" said he.
"Done," said Jamie.

The

The watchman went out, and Jamie entered the roomy old safe. He put the ledgers and the cash drawer in their places; but the sudden darkness blinded his eyes. In it he saw the face of his Mercedes, still sad but comforted, as he had left her at the train that morning.

He wiped the tears away and tried to think. He looked around the old vault,

money of dead people, lay mouldering away; and not one dollar of it to save his little girl.

Then his eye fell on the old box on the upper shelf. A hanged pirate's money! He drew the box down; the key still was on his bunch; he opened the chest. There the gold pieces lay in their canvas bag; no one had thought of them for twenty years. Now, as a thought struck him, he took down some old ledgers, ledgers of the old firm of James Bowdoin's Sons, that had been placed there for safe-keeping. He opened one after another hurriedly; then, getting the right one, he came out into the light, and, finding the index, turned to the page containing this entry : —

ONE of the most hopeless delusions prevalent in the United States, as alluring as the search for the philosopher's stone of the Middle Ages, and not confined to the illiterate classes, is the belief that there are in Europe estates innumerable, and of unlimited value, awaiting rightful heirs and claimants. In the mean time these estates are supposed to

be locked up in Probate or Chancery courts, in the Bank of England and similar institutions, or in the occupancy of fraudulent, or wrongful, if innocent, ten

ants.

Most of the claimants of these estates are probably ignorant how well founded their claims may be; the idea of their having any claim having been first sug

gested to them by the advertisements, catalogues, or circulars of fraudulent and unscrupulous claim agents. The latter sometimes compile a list of names purporting to be those of persons who have been advertised for in proceedings in the Court of Chancery, and otherwise, to claim money and property; also the names of testators in cases in which heirs are not known, and of persons advertised for in respect to unclaimed dividends. The agents also state that on the receipt of one guinea they will search records and documents relating to any name in the list, which in one publication extends over 228 pages, containing four columns of 67 names each, making a grand total of over 60,000 names, after allowing over 1000 for repetitions, which seem to be numerous. Out of this prodigious number of lost estates and heirs, the agents are sure to attract a goodly number of persons who will forward a guinea on the chance, particularly when it is stated that "if by any chance a name should not be connected with money or property the fees are at once returned." The unscrupulous agent not only does not waste any time in investigating the claim after the guinea is received, but from time to time sends in a bill of charges for sums professedly expended in searches and legal proceedings, and pleads delays and obstacles of all kinds in getting possession of the estate sought for. It would be interesting to know how many guinea fees are ever returned. There are doubtless some bona fide cases of claims to estates being brought to trial, though no successful ones are known.

Claims of this class, which generally are entirely imaginary and delusive, differ in this respect from the celebrated Tichborne case, which occurred in England in 1874, where there was an actual estate and a really lost heir, and where the claimant was the only fraudulent feature. Whether the idea of personifying the lost Roger Tichborne originated in NO. 460.

VOL. LXXVII.

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the claimant's own brain, or was suggested to him by designing persons who hoped to live on him when he came into possession, will probably never be known. It is stated that the claimant, after serving out his sentence of imprisonment at hard labor, confessed that he was a butcher of the name of Orton, and that his whole claim was fraudulent, as had been conclusively proved at the trial. The costs to the rightful owners were enormous, and hampered the estate for some years, though, fortunately, the affair happened during the minority of the heir. It was astonishing that a large number of intelligent persons could be found to subscribe to the fund in aid of the false claimant. Had he been successful, he would have been the counterpart of Tittlebat Titmouse, the claimant in the well-known story Ten Thousand a Year, which was written many years before the Tichborne case occurred.

The Department of State at Washington and our legations and embassies abroad are inundated with inquiries concerning "unclaimed estates," indicating in every case that there is a fraudulent estate agent in the background as prime mover in the matter. In reply to the writers, the Department of State has prepared printed circulars, based on the reports of our diplomatic officials in Europe, exposing the designs of claim agents, and indicating the proper methods of searching for estates, though at the same time pointing out the futility of doing

Such is the general view of the subject, but a few instances and particulars may be of interest and advantage to the public, and may deter credulous persons from wasting time and good money on fraudulent agents and unfounded claims. It is also well for claim agents and claimants to know at the start that the transmission through the mail of letters containing schemes for the purpose of obtaining money or property under false pretenses is forbidden by law, and that the governments of the United States and Great Britain are in accord to intercept such letters, and bring the senders, if possible, to trial and punishment. The only case in this country which has been prosecuted with the result of convicting and punishing the estate agent was under the provisions of the law against using the mails for the purpose of swindling the public. The English convictions were for obtaining money under false pretenses.

The principal claims brought to the notice of our embassy in England are those against the Jennens, or Jennings, the Hedges, the Bradford, the Hyde, the Horne, and the Townley estates, to say nothing of the many claims to untold sums of money said to be lying in the Bank of England, or in Chancery, or in the public funds of England or India. The Jennings claimants have become so numerous that a Jennings Claim Association, located at last accounts in Canada, has been formed, with entrance fees and assessments levied annually for the benefit of the unscrupulous managers who pretend to act for the deluded members. Applications to the Department of State by claimants of the Jennings estate had already become so numerous in 1844 that our minister in London at that time, after consulting a firm of wellknown solicitors there, ascertained that the lost estate in question belonged to one John Jennens of Erdington and Birmingham, who died in 1653, and whose estates eventually passed to one

William Jennens, who died in 1798, possessed of about £2,000,000 sterling. As he had omitted to sign his will, his estates passed to his heir-at-law, George William Augustus Curzon, and in 1844 belonged to Earl Howe, the head of the Curzon family. Mr. Jennens's personal property passed to his cousin, and was divided among Earl Beauchamp and others. The claim to the estate has been repeatedly before the courts; and in November, 1880, Vice-Chancellor Malins, in the case of "Willis and others vs. Earl Howe and others," when giving judgment against the claimant, is said to have remarked, "If such a claim could be allowed after a period of eighty-two years, no one would be safe in the possession of his property." As regards this estate, it is therefore safe to say that there is not the slightest hope for any claimant, and that the Jennings Claim Association is only a trap to catch credulous persons, any payments by the members of the association being so much lost money put into the pockets of sharp

ers.

The Hedges estate, funds belonging to which are supposed to be lying in the Bank of England, stands upon nearly the same footing as the Jennings estate. The deputy governor of the Bank of England informed the American legation in London, about two years ago, that no funds could be found standing on their books in the name of Sir Charles Hedges, and that the investigation of a well-known genealogist showed that Sir Charles Hedges's will had been duly proved by his son William, who inherited his property and left a number of descendants. The Bradford, Hyde, and Horne estates were also described by the same authority as ordinary myths by which many persons had been beguiled. The Bank of England accountants further state that there are no large unclaimed sums on their books. Such sums as there are can be obtained only by identification of the stock or investment by the

legal representatives, or by proceedings in the Court of Chancery. The bank is not the custodian of any real estate whatsoever, nor of the property of persons dying intestate, nor of unclaimed dividends in Chancery, and it is useless to inquire of the bank for deposits held for any one's benefit. All stocks or dividends unclaimed for ten years are transferred to the Commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, who will always refund the same to lawful owners proving title. No lists of unclaimed funds in the Bank of England have been published since 1845, it having been found that such lists were used to deceive credulous persons. A list of unclaimed funds in Chancery, which amount to only about £1,000,000 sterling, is published every three years in the London Gazette; but the amount in each case is not stated, and the names of the parties to the suit in which such funds have been deposited being ordinarily entirely different from those of the original owners of the property, it would be useless to apply for them merely under the original owners' names. Prior to the Probate Act of 1858 English wills were filed in local courts, mostly under the jurisdiction of the bishops, and consequently are extremely difficult to find; but since 1858 duplicates have been sent to Somerset House, where copies can be obtained for a small fee.

The Lawrence Townley, or Chase, estate in England seems to be singled out by swindlers for their special efforts, and, fortunately, is the one in which these false agents, under many aliases, have been brought to bay and punished. This estate, claimed by many persons of the name of Lawrence and Chase, was represented to consist of $800,000,000, more or less, lying in the Bank of England awaiting distribution. As a fact, there is no money in that bank belonging to any Townley, Lawrence Townley, or Chase estate. One excuse for the claims was an act of Parliament passed in August,

1884, which was supposed to distribute this property. The Townley estate, which is situated in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, has been for a very long time in the possession of its rightful owners, and there are no unknown or American heirs to any portion of it. The act of Parliament in question was merely to arrange some equities arising under successive marriage settlements and conveyances executed at various times, and to carry out a decree of the Court of Chancery in an amicable suit brought for that purpose. The American claimants of this estate were advertised for and encouraged by a person calling himself Colonel James F. Jacquess, with a confederate named Howell Thomas. These two swindlers were finally stopped in their career by the London police. Thomas was convicted of swindling Jacquess, and sentenced to five years' penal servitude. Jacquess was tried later for conspiring with Thomas to obtain money under false pretenses, was convicted, and sentenced at the Old Bailey, November 29, 1894, to twenty months' imprisonment at hard labor. The trial and conviction in the United States of William Lord Moore, a swindler of the same class, will be narrated later on. Doubtless these will not be the last cases of this kind of imposture, as almost incredibly large gains are made by such nefarious proceedings.

Colonel Jacquess, at the preliminary hearing in the police court in July, 1894, confessed that he had received from his dupes in America about £10,000 between 1876 and 1885, and that between 1885 and 1894 he had received at least £22,000. Like most adventurers of this class, he had, according to his own account, had a great variety of occupations. He had been a teacher in a ladies' school, a preacher, a private in the ranks as well as colonel and general in our civil war, and an official in our general post-office; had engaged in commercial pursuits; had started an employment bureau for emancipated negroes; and finally was called

to the bar, but never practiced. At the second examination of Jacquess, October 3, 1894, William E. French, one of the American witnesses, of the firm of William French & Co., of Evansville, Indiana, and a business partner of Jonathan Jacquess, a brother of the colonel, deposed that Colonel Jacquess and an attorney named Karr had told him that two brothers named Lawrence, living in America, were the rightful heirs to the Townley estate, and that these two Lawrences, not having sufficient money to prosecute their claims to it, were raising money on bonds. The witness agreed to buy bonds of the face value of $25,000, paying $500 for them. On the bonds was printed a statement that the Lawrences were the true heirs, and on the back was the following: "The Court of Chancery of England, ordered by the House of Commons, February 23, 1865, decided that the Lawrence Townley estate remains unsettled, and is yet subject to a claimant, and marked in the Chancery book Heirs gone to America.'" The court also issued the following decree: "that the heirs of Mary Townley, who married a Lawrence and settled in America, are the legal heirs of the estate." Witness said that he had purchased subsequently more of the bonds, at a total face value of $100,000. Since then he had dined with Colonel Jacquess, who said that proceedings with regard to the estate were progressing favorably.

The prosecuting attorney did not consider that this testimony was sufficient to establish the charge of obtaining money under false pretenses, nor was that the question then at issue. This suit, in fact, was brought by Jacquess against Thomas, whom he had employed as his solicitor in getting claims through the courts, to force him to account for the sums he had received from his American victims, and was decided in favor of Jacquess, Thomas being sentenced to imprisonment. It was in consequence of the evidence brought out at this trial that Jacquess

The

and Thomas were jointly tried on the charge of obtaining money under false pretenses. It must be said to the credit of Thomas that, when acting for Jacquess, he had really done his best to get the claim to the Townley estate through the courts, beginning with the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice. Here it was referred to a judge in Chambers, who in his turn referred it to the Divisional Court, which struck out the statement of claim as being frivolous and vexatious, and dismissed the action. Another action brought in the Chancery Division was likewise dismissed. case was then taken up to the Court of Appeal, where it was dismissed as being vexatious and oppressive. Thomas next carried it before the House of Lords, which confirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal, and settled the question finally. After all this litigation, it is not astonishing that there was no money left to turn over to Jacquess. All the papers in the case were then sent to the public prosecutor, and criminal proceedings were taken against Thomas to force him to account to Jacquess, with the result that Thomas was sent to prison. It was, however, a case of a thief catching a thief, as was proved in the subsequent trial of, the two together, when Thomas pleaded guilty, and Jacquess was convicted by the verdict of the jury. The judge, in passing sentence, remarked that he should have been glad to impose a heavy fine to deprive Thomas and Jacquess of their ill-gotten gains; but as it appeared that they were both without means, he could only sentence them to imprisonment for as foul a conspiracy as men could well concoct. Jacquess was seventy-four years old, and Thomas forty-three.

It may be serviceable to those claiming, or planning to claim, estates in England to know, on the authority of the American embassy in London, that under recent statutes known as the Personal Property Act, the Real Property