last sudies in criminology by irving

8/2/2019 Last Sudies in Criminology by Irving

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIAAT LOS ANGELES


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LAST STUDIESIN CRIMINOLOGY


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A LONDON MOSAICw. L. GEORGECrown 4 to. 15/- net

SOUTH WITH SCOTTCAPTAIN E. R. O. R. EVANS, C.B., D.S.O., R.N.Demy 8vo. 10/6 net

IBSEN AND HIS CREATIONJANKO LAVRINCrown 8vo. 7/6 net


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LAST STUDIESINCRIMINOLOGYby

H. B. IRVING

LONDON: 48 PALL MALLW. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD.GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND


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CopyrightFirst Impression, September, 1921Second October, 1921

Manufactured in Great Britain


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ADOLF BECK


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Adolf BeckTHE case of Adolf Beck made history in English law.It led to the constitution of a court of Criminal Appeal.It is melancholy to think that the long-drawn-outagony of this unfortunate Norwegian should havebeen necessary to bring about a reform which logicand common sense demanded, and only legal con-servatism and the unreasoning indifference of thepublic had so long postponed. The case is also astartling instance of that ' persistent, inexplicable,fundamental, pre-ordained, irreducible iniquity,' inwhich some existences are steeped; ' a thousandcoincidences that might have been contrived in hell,blending and joining together to work the ruin of aninnocent man; while truth, chained down by fate,dumbly shrinking, as we do when wrestling withnightmare, is unable to put forth a single gesture thatshall rend the veil of night.' These words of Maeter-linck were inspired by the case of Lesurques; theyapply with perhaps even greater force to that of AdolfBeck. There are many circumstances in the adminis-tration of justice in France, under the Directory,which make it easy to explain the error committed inthe case of Lesurques. But that of Beck occurred in acountry priding itself on its administration of justice,and the comparative rarity in its legal annals ofjudicialerror, in the teeth of all those safeguards by which oursystem was supposed to protect an innocent man fromwrongful conviction. Never did 'murderous fatality 'hunt down more surely its pre-ordained victim.Of the innocence of Beck there can be no question.' There is no shadow of foundation,' said the Report

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Last Studies in Criminologyof the Committee appointed to inquire into his case,4 for any of the charges made against Mr Beck, orany reason for supposing that he had any connectionwhatever with them.' No problem of guilt or innocencearises. The interest of the story of Adolf Beck'sill luck lies rather in marking the circumstanceswhich one by one, through no fault of his own, struckthe man down, and every time he tried to rise, flunghim back into the clutches of a system which, it isevident, can in certain conditions become a terribleinstrument of torture for helpless innocence. It is nopart of this story to apportion blame. In Beck's caseno one person was to blame in the sense of seekingdeliberately to commit or, after it had been committed,stifle an act of injustice. All concerned in the tragedyseem the blind creatures of a relentless fate bent oncompassing the ruin of Adolf Beck.

Beck may fairly be described as an unlucky man.Nothing in life had succeeded with him. Born inNorway in 1841, he had been educated as a chemist.He preferred, however, to go to sea, and in 1865 or1866 arrived in England, where he obtained employ-ment as clerk to a ship-broker. In 1868 he leftEngland for South America and there for a short timeappeared as a public singer. He was wounded in arevolutionary outbreak in Monte Video. After thathe was employed variously in ship-broking, andbuying and selling houses. In 1885 Beck returned toEngland. He made 8000 as commission on the saleof a Spanish railway concession, and with part of thatsum bought a copper property in Norway. But theenterprise was not successful, and in 1893 Beck wasobliged to borrow 900 from a hotel proprietor inCovent Garden. Mr G. R. Sims, who knew Beck formany years, describes him as a deeply religious man,soft hearted and impulsively generous, who hadearned the friendship and esteem of many well-known4


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Adolf Beckpeople at home and abroad. ' I have never knownAdolf Beck,' wrote Mr Sims, ' do a mean or unkindlyact. Amid all his persecutions and trouble I haveknown him do many kindly and generous ones.'Beck spoke and wrote English imperfectly.In 1895 Beck was living in a flat in Victoria Street.On the evening of December i6th, in that year, hewas standing at the street door looking for a newspaperboy, when a woman came up to him and said, ' Whathave you done with my watch ? ' Beck replied,' Madam, I do not know you, you are mistaken.'The woman persisted in her accusation. Beckthreatened to give her into custody. The woman stillpersisting, Beck said, ' Come with me,' and togetherthey went up to a policeman. Beck said that thewoman was annoying him by making a false accusationagainst him and asked the policeman to take her incharge. All three went to the nearest police station.There the woman repeated her statement, and Beck,from the accuser, found himself the accused. A littlelater two other women were brought into the station,both of whom identified Beck as a man who hadrobbed them. He was detained in custody.

It was a fatal impulse that prompted Adolf Beck togo down to his street door on December i6th, 1895,to look for a newspaper boy.Some eighteen years before, on May loth, 1877,while Beck was still in South America, a man of thename of John Smith, a circumcised Jew, twenty-sevenyears of age, had been convicted at the Central CriminalCourt of ' bilking ' women, and sentenced to fiveyears' penal servitude. His practice at that time wasto pass as a certain * Lord Willoughby,' to makefriends with a woman, hold himself out as a man ofmeans and position, and give the woman a boguscheque, on the strength of which he would borrowmoney from her and any poor articles of jewellery

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Last Studies in Criminologywhich she happened to possess. Lord Willoughbywould then disappear with the money, jewellery, andany other little articles of value he could lay hands on,and never be heard of again, while the unfortunatewoman presented the cheque at the bank and realisedthat she had been the victim of a swindler. Thetrial of Smith took place before the Common Serjeant,Sir Thomas Chambers, afterwards Recorder ofLondon,and the prosecution was conducted by Mr ForrestFulton, who, as Common Serjeant of London in 1896,was to preside at the first trial of Adolf Beck. Smithwas defended by Montagu Williams.Two years after Smith's conviction it had becomeknown to the prison authorities that the convict wasa circumcised Jew. A certificate by the MedicalOfficer to that effect was then attached to Smith'spenal record. When Smith was released on licence in1 88 1, his photograph and description were sent toScotland Yard. By an unfortunate omission the factof Smith's circumcision was not stated in the copy of hisdescription sent to the police, a very unlucky circum-stance, as it turned out, for Adolf Beck.For two years after his release from prison Smithremained in England. He then went to SouthAustralia where he practised as a doctor. In 1894he returned to England, but until two years later,when he was carrying on a jewellery business inRosebery Avenue, his whereabouts were unknown.The woman who, on the evening of December i6th,1895, had accused Adolf Beck of robbing her wasnamed Ottilie Meissonier. According to her storyshe had met Beck in Victoria Street on November 26th.She was on her way to a flower show at the Drill Hall,Westminster. She said that Beck had stopped her,and asked if she were Lady Egerton. After apologisingfor his mistake, he got into conversation with her. Itturned on the subject of flowers. He said that he had6


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Adolf Beckan estate in Lincolnshire and kept ten gardeners.The woman said that she had a box of chrysanthe-mums at home. Beck asked if he might call at herhouse in Fulham and see them. She invited him tocome on the following day. He did so, and was sostruck apparently with the charms of Miss Meissonierthat he invited her to go with him to the South ofFrance. He was, he said, a cousin of Lord Salisburyand owned the greater part of Brompton. His incomeamounted to the paltry sum of 180,000. He gaveMiss Meissonier a cheque for 40 to pay for heroutfit for the Riviera. He was kind enough to sayhe would take a watch belonging to her to be mended,and a ring to be enlarged. After he had left, shemissed another watch, and on presenting the chequeat the Union Bank in Trafalgar Square, learned thather wealthy friend had no account there.This story which Ottilie Meissonier told to thepolice was one of many. Since the latter part of theyear 1894, a number of women of light character hadmade similar complaints of having been defrauded bya man passing himself off as ' Lord Wilton,' or ' LordWinton de Willoughby,' by giving bogus chequesand stealing articles of value by precisely the samemethod as that followed by John Smith eighteen yearsbefore. The police had been unable to lay hands onthe swindler, but the arrest of Beck gave them hopethat they had at last succeeded in getting the rightman. In all twenty-two women were brought to seeBeck, ten of whom identified him positively as theman who had swindled them; others were uncertain;one only declared that he was not the man. When,on the day following his arrest, Beck was brought upbefore the magistrate at Westminster Police Court,another woman told a story against him similar tothat of Ottilie Meissonier. In her case the man haddescribed himself as ' Earl Wilton,' and obtained from

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Last Studies in Criminologyher two rings and a bracelet. He had promised to sether up in an establishment in St John's Wood and,in order that she might get things for the new house,had given her a bogus cheque for 35 on a non-existent branch of the Union Bank in St James'sStreet. When, the previous evening, this woman hadseen Beck with six other men at the police station,she said that she believed him to be the man, butwould know better if he took off his hat. When hedid so, she said that he was the man. Beck wasremanded.Hitherto the police had not associated the offencescharged against Beck with those committed by Smithin 1877. But, the day following Beck's first appear-ance at the police court, a gentleman, who had seenan account of the proceedings in the newspaper andrecollected the crimes of Smith, wrote to the authoritiesat Scotland Yard and called their attention to thesimilarity of the two cases. Following up this hint,the police obtained two pieces of evidence whichseemed to confirm the suggestion of their correspon-dent. A police officer named Spurrell, who had beenpresent at the conviction of Smith at the Old Baileyin 1866, swore positively that Smith and Beck werethe same man. Gurrin, the handwriting expert, havingexamined the documents in the cases of Smith andBeck, and compared them with the admitted hand-writing of the latter, declared that undoubtedly allthe documents were in the same handwriting, andthat it was a Scandinavian type of handwriting, whichin the cheques and documents given to the defraudedwomen had been

disguised.There were, he said, two

styles of writing, one natural, the other feigned; allthe documents that had been submitted to him werein the handwriting of Adolf Beck. From this momentthe police and the prosecution accepted the fact thatBeck as John Smith had been convicted previously in8


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Adolf Beck1877 of offences similar to those now alleged againsthim in 1895. It was of a piece with Beck's ill luckin general that Gurrin, the expert, eight years later,admitted that he had been wrong in his conclusionthat the documents in the Smith case and Beck's casewere written in the disguised handwriting of AdolfBeck. This mistake of his played no small part in theeight years of suffering that Beck was fated to endure.It was unfortunate, too, that before the trial Inglis,another expert, employed by the defence, had agreedwith the erroneous opinion of Gurrin.

During the subsequent hearings at the police court,eight other women gave evidence of having beenswindled in a fashion similar to that already described,and identified Beck as the swindler. Spurrell andGurrin also gave evidence, and on February 6th, 1896,Beck was committed for trial to the Central CriminalCourt on various charges of felony and misdemeanour.At the final hearing at the police court Beck hadbeen anxious to make a statement asserting his inno-cence and denying the fact that he was John Smith.But his solicitor, Mr Dutton, who had been recom-mended to him by the police after his arrest, dissuadedhim. From the moment that the prosecution allegedthe identity of Beck with Smith, Mr Dutton believedthat he had a ' winning case '; he was confident thathe would be able to disprove the alleged identity, andso secure Beck's acquittal. But, however confidenta solicitor may be of his client's innocence, it has beenheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal that it is as arule unwise, if he have a good defence, not to discloseit at the police court. 1The position of Adolf Beck, an innocent man, issufficiently tragic at the moment. Ten women haveidentified him as a swindler, charged with a peculiarlymean and dastardly form of theft. Some of the

1 Wills, Circumstantial Evidence, 6th Edition, p. 102.9


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Last Studies in Criminologywomen admitted that they had gone to the policecourt in a spirit of revenge, hoping to be the means ofpunishing the man who had cheated them. But evenallowing for the feeling of resentment which madethese witnesses only too ready to see in Beck a heartlessswindler, their statements are a startling proof of thelittle reliance that, except under very special circum-stances, can be placed on evidence to identity. Beyondthe fact that both men had a gray moustache, there waslittle or no physical resemblance between Beck andSmith. Smith spoke English perfectly, Beck with astrong foreign accent. Yet, in spite of these circum-stances, ten women are found ready to swear quitehonestly that an innocent man is a thief and swindler.Beck had one, and that a seemingly impregnableanswer to the charge against him. He said, 4 I amnot, as the prosecution allege, John Smith convictedin 1877 and sentenced to five years' penal servitude.I am prepared to prove beyond doubt that duringthe whole period from the conviction of Smith in 1877to his release from prison in 1881, I was in SouthAmerica. If I can prove that for only one day of thatperiod I was out of England, it is conclusive proofthat I cannot be John Smith/ We have seen that whenhe found himself charged at the police court as JohnSmith, Beck had wished to make a statement to thiseffect but had been dissuaded from doing so. Hecould only hope now to bring forward this proof ofhis innocence at his approaching trial.What steps had the prosecution taken to satisfythemselves that Smith and Beck were the same man?The identification marks of Smith were sent by thepolice to the Public Prosecutor, and on January 1 5th,1896, those of Adolf Beck. Mr Sims of the Treasury,in whose hands had been placed the conduct of thecase, received those of Smith, but had no recollectionof receiving those of Beck, nor did he make any further10


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Adolf Beckapplication for them. He explained his inaction inthe matter by saying that the evidence of ConstableSpurrell, who had seen Smith nineteen years before,and now identified Beck as the same man, had satisfiedhim that there was sufficient prima fade evidence ofBeck's identity with Smith. A police officer who,having independently examined Beck and comparedhis marks with those of Smith, had failed to find inBeck the corresponding marks, said that he communi-cated the result of his examination to Mr Sims. MrSims was positive that he had not done so. In anycase it is clear that the prosecution, though they knewfrom Mr Button at the police court the nature ofBeck's defence, had not taken every possible meansof satisfying themselves beyond all doubt that Beckwas John Smith. It must be added that the descriptionof Smith sent to the Treasury did not state the factof his circumcision. This fact was at this time knownonly to the prison authorities at Portsmouth. Twicebefore the trial, Mr Dutton applied to the Com-missioners of Police for permission, for the purpose ofthe defence, to see the penal record of John Smith.Both applications were refused.The trial of Adolf Beck began at the CentralCriminal Court on March 3rd, 1896, before theCommon Serjeant, Sir Forrest Fulton, now Recorderof London. Mr (now Mr Justice) Avory led for the

prosecution, and Mr C. F. Gill for the defence. Therewere five indictments against Beck, one for mis-demeanour, and four for felony. In each of theindictments for felony there was a count chargingthe prisoner with having been previously convictedas John Smith, but there was no such count in thatfor misdemeanour. Mr Avory at the time believedthat an indictment for misdemeanour could notlegally contain any charge of a previous conviction;but, as he himself pointed out subsequently, the

L.S.C. B 1 1


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Last Studies in CriminologyPrevention of Crimes Act (34 and 35 Vic.), woulchave justified its inclusion; in any case it was not, hesaid, his practice

to insert such a count in an indictmentfor misdemeanour. It was on this indictment formisdemeanour, which contained no count of a previousconviction, that the prosecution elected to try Beck.This we shall see, from the point of view of the innocentman, was a most unfortunate decision.

It was unfortunate, too, for an innocent man thatnothing could have appeared stronger than theevidence of the ten women who all swore to theidentity of Beck with the man who, as Lord Wilton,or Willoughby, had swindled them so heartlessly.' I was quite sure of him and always have been,' saidone. ' The prisoner is the living picture of the manI saw,' said another. * I recognised the prisoner atonce,' ' I have not a shadow of doubt he is the man,'said others. There was some divergence among themas to the accent with which the man had spoken.Some said that he might have had a slight foreignaccent, some that he spoke as an Englishman; othershad noticed that he was not an Englishman; onesaid that at her flat he spoke with a Yankee twang,but when she saw the man at the police court shethought he was a Swiss. As the Prisoners' EvidenceAct had not been passed at the time of Beck's trial,he was unable to go into the box and give the womenan opportunity of hearing him speak; they might thenhave been less positive as to his identity. Mr Gillcould shake them but little in cross-examination.He got from some of them that the conditions, underwhich they had identified the prisoner, had not in allcases been satisfactory, and that their feelings againstthe man they believed to have swindled them wereangry and revengeful. But, taking it altogether,on the evidence of the women, the case against Beckwas a very strong one.12


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Adolf BeckTo one of the women, the man who had swindled

her had written on note-paper of the Grand Hotel,London, and had spoken of sending to her a one-armed commissionaire, a favourite character in hisvarious romances, from that hotel. A waiter from theGrand Hotel was called by the prosecution, who saidthat for the last six years he had known Beck as avisitor to the smoking room of the hotel.The proprietor of a hotel in Covent Garden gaveevidence with obvious reluctance of the fact thatBeck owed him a sum of money amounting to ^1300or 1400.The crucial moment in the decision of Beck's fatewas the appearance in the witness box of Gurrin,the handwriting expert. As we know, he had alreadyformed the opinion that the cheques and lists in thepresent case, as well as those in the Smith case in 1877,were all in the disguised handwriting of Adolf Beck.The prosecution asked him only as to the former,making no allusion to the documents in the Smithcase. It was when Mr Gill, in cross-examination,referred to the case of Smith that the question arose,the answer to which was to determine whether aninnocent man was to suffer or not for the guilt ofanother. What occurred is given thus in the wordsof the Sessions Paper:

' Mr Gill was proceeding to cross-examine asto the handwriting of certain other documents,exhibits in the case of a man Smith, tried in 1877.Mr Avory objected to the witness being cross-examined with a view of raising the question whetherthe prisoner was the person convicted in 1877 of anoffence similar to that charged in the indictment;that was a collateral issue, and should not be inquiredinto until after the jury had returned their verdict,lest it should afterwards be said that the prisoner

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Last Studies in Criminologyhad been improperly convicted. Mr Gill urged thatthe question was directly in issue, and that he wasentitled to raise it, as his case on behalf of the prisonerwas that the man who was convicted in 1877 was theman who had been committing these frauds, and thatthe prisoner had been mistaken for that man. Hedesired to show by cross-examination that the writingof the man convicted in 1877 was the same as thatof the exhibits in the present case. Mr Gurrinstated that the exhibits in the case of Smith wereexamined by him some time after he had made hisreport; there was a reference in his report, producedat the police court, to the exhibits in that case. MrGill further contended that upon the question of thevalue of the witness's opinion he was entitled to haveall the documents produced which had been submittedto him. Mr Avory objected to the witness beingasked whether these exhibits were in the same writingas the lists in the present case. The Common Serjeantruled that the question whether the prisoner was orwas not the man convicted in 1877 was not admissible,on the ground that it related to another and distinctissue, and one calculated to mislead the jury. Ifwitnesses were called to character, Mr Avory mightcross-examine them as to the prisoner's previouscharacter; or he might choose not to have the issueconfused by the introduction of that matter.'The situation was this : the prosecution had the

positive testimony of the police constable, Spurrell,that Beck was Smith, and that of another retiredconstable, who had been in charge of the Smith caseand was prepared to identify Beck as the man. Theyhad Gurrin's report that the documents in both theSmith and Beck cases were all in the disguised hand-writing of Adolf Beck. In the indictments for felonyBeck was charged with previous conviction as Smith.


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Adolf BeckIn part through a misapprehension on a technicalpoint, Beck was not charged with previous convictionas Smith in the indictment for misdemeanour, onwhich the prosecution had elected to try him beforethe Common Serjeant. Mr Avory had positiveinstructions and himself no reasonable doubt thatBeck was Smith. When Mr Gill commenced hiscross-examination of Gurrin as to the documents inthe Smith case, with the object of showing that thehandwriting of these documents was not that of Beck,but that of a man named Smith, Mr Avory objectedto the relevance of such evidence. The reason thatprompted him to make this vital objection was that,if such evidence were admitted, he would then haveto prove to the jury, as he believed he could, thatBeck was Smith, and so prejudice the prisoner in theeyes of the jury by proving a previous convictionagainst him. It was also his feeling that the admissionof this evidence might afterwards give ground forcontending that the prisoner had been improperlyconvicted. Mr Gill, on his side, held the view, rightlyor wrongly, that the only way, by which in the presenttrial he could raise the issue as to the identity of Beckwith Smith, was by cross-examining the witnesses calledfor the prosecution, and then calling witnesses toprove an alibi in regard to the alleged previous con-viction of Beck as Smith. To have pressed thematter further after the ruling of the judge he did notconsider justifiable; to have turned and denouncedthe judge or Mr Avory would, in his opinion, havebeen an outrage. To have put forward an affirmativedefence in opposition to the ruling of the judgewould, he considered, have been rather a strong thingto do, and would have necessitated his calling Gurrinand Spurrell, hostile witnesses. These were themotives actuating the two leading counsel in thelines they took respectively in dealing with the question


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Last Studies in Criminologyof the identity of Beck with Smith. If Mr Avory'scontention that such a question was a collateral issuewere upheld by the judge, and Mr Gill did not con-sider himself justified in pressing the matter further,then Beck was lost.The judge decided against him. He held that thequestion of Beck's identity with Smith was a collateralissue, and therefore inadmissible to be raised in thepresent case. The Common Serjeant had formedin his own mind during the case the opinion thatprobably Beck was not Smith, and that the prosecutionwere very doubtful on this point. He thought thatMr Gill, perfectly legitimately, was trying to run thedefence on the identity of doubtful documents, to theexclusion of the positive evidence as to Beck's identitygiven during the trial by the various women. He hadnot the faintest recollection of his own appearance asprosecuting counsel in the Smith case in 1877; hehad had very little practice at the Old Bailey at thattime, and had probably held the brief for a friend.The Committee of Inquiry into Beck's case in1904, consisting of the Master of the Rolls, an ex-Indian judge, and a distinguished civil servant andhistorian, was of opinion that the decision of SirForrest Fulton was wrong, that a prisoner was notdebarred from referring to a previous conviction ifmaterial to his defence, that evidence adduced by aprisoner, relevant to his defence, cannot be excluded,although it be relevant also to a collateral issue whichis not under trial. In their opinion, the evidencetendered by Mr Gill could only have been excludedon the ground that it was irrelevant to the main issue,the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. But in thiscase it was relevant to the main issue : ' It was thefirst step in a train of reasoning leading to the con-clusion that Mr Beck was not the man. Two crimeswere committed by one and the same man. Mr Beck16


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Adolf Beckcould not have committed the first. Therefore hedid not commit the second.' To the Committee itseemed that Sir Forest Fulton had treated the soundrule as to evidence on collateral issues as applicableto the special circumstances of this case, which, withthe greatest deference, they ventured to think, forthe reasons given above, it was not.The decision of the Common Serjeant on thesecond day of the trial was the last link in the chainof fatal circumstances that was to bring about theconviction and imprisonment of an innocent man.After the rejection of his plea, Mr Gill called somewitnesses for the defence. When one of them wasabout to give evidence of his having met Beck inPeru in 1880, at a time when John Smith was servinghis term of imprisonment in England, his evidencewas objected to as irrelevant. On March 5th, aftera few minutes' deliberation, the jury found Beck guilty.The Common Serjeant said that he considered theevidence as to identity had been overwhelming, notin one, but in every direction. He described theprisoner's crime as base, wicked, and entirely heartless,and sentenced him to seven years' penal servitude.Mr Gill asked that the indictments for felonyagainst Beck should now be tried, or a verdict of not

guilty taken on them, but the judge decided thatthey must stand over till the next session of thecourt, when the Attorney-General entered a nolleprosequi in regard to them.Beck was sent to serve the first part of his sentenceat Wormwood Scrubs prison. There he was giventhe number allotted to John Smith in 1877, 0.523,with an additional ' W ' marking him as having beenpreviously convicted. Beck was now legally, and allbut in fact, John Smith.

Indeed, in the words of Sir Forrest Fulton at alater date, 'an awful calamity' had fallen on Adolf

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Last Studies in CriminologyBeck. But this was as nothing to the ' grievouswrong ' that was to be done him in the time to come.Calamity he had suffered through what might beheld to have been a too narrow interpretation of thelaw of evidence, wrong he was to suffer through theunsympathetic attitude of the Home Office towardshis frequent appeals for justice. No doubt such appealsare constant and for the most part worthless, andbreed in the official mind a certain natural scepticism.But there is always the danger that this scepticismmay become a habit of mind, a danger which onlyconstant vigilance can prevent.The first of fifteen petitions presented by Beck tothe Home Office was dated June 9th, 1896, and wasdrawn up by Mr Dutton, his solicitor. It put forwardthe question, left untried, of the identity of Beck withSmith; it pointed out that from 1873 to 1884, duringthe period embracing the trial and imprisonment ofJohn Smith, Beck had been in South America, andstated that four gentlemen had attended at the trialprepared to swear to having known Beck during thatperiod in Peru. One of them, a Gentleman of theChamber to the King of Denmark, recollected a visitpaid him by Beck whilst he was in prison in Lima,during the war between Chili and Peru, which hadlasted from 1879 to 1881. All these gentlemen hadbeen called for the defence at the trial as witnessesto the good character of Beck, but that part of theirevidence which would have negatived the suggestionthat Beck was Smith, had been ruled out as irrelevantto the issue. Mr Dutton now asked that the HomeOffice should cause such inquiries to be made aswould prevent a ' grave miscarriage of justice,' andprocure a free pardon for the petitioner.There are two Home Office minutes drawn up onthe subject of this petition, and the substance of bothis a refusal on the part of the Home Office authorities18


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Adolf Beckto examine into the question, raised by Mr Gill at thetrial, of Beck's identity with Smith. They accept theruling of the Common Serjeant as to the irrelevanceof Mr Gill's defence. In the first minute it is said :* Even if the prisoner is not Smith, the evidence ofhis guilt in the present case is quite overwhelming. Hewas identified by ten women, whom he had defrauded,quite positively. There was also the evidence of MrGurrin as to the handwriting of the forged chequesand its identity with the previous writing.' Thisminute, as the Committee of Inquiry pointed out,' suggests no inkling of any miscarriage. It assumesas conclusive beyond discussion the ruling itselfwhich is the real ground of appeal, and assumesas conclusive, evidence which was only conclusivebecause all evidence to the contrary was excluded bythe ruling impugned.' In the second minute Mr Gill'sdefence is described as a ' clever ruse.' How, it isasked, could the evidence of his witnesses as to Beck'spresence in South America be disproved ? Thiswould almost seem to suggest, said the Committee,that an alibi is defective and a ruse, because it is difficultfor the Crown to answer it. Beck's alibi was a goodone; it had not the vice of alleging events to havehappened at a particular place and time, which hadreally happened, but at a different place and time fromthat alleged; the presence of Beck in South Americaon any one day during Smith's crimes and imprison-ment was sufficient to prove his case. But into thequestion of this alibi the Home Office refused to go,and the petition was marked

' Nil.'Speaking many years after the event and with no

distinct recollection of the case, except from re-readingit, Sir Kenelm Digby, Permanent Under-Secretaryat the Home Office in 1896, would seem at the timeto have been greatly influenced in his view of the valueof Beck's defence by the fact that Mr Gill, having


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Last Studies in Criminologyfailed to put it forward by cross-examination, had notopened it as an affirmative defence. It led him to theconclusion that Mr Gill had not affirmative evidencestrong enough to meet that of the prosecution, andthat he had not pressed his case further because hecould not really rely on the strength of it.Whatever the reasons, no steps of any kind weretaken by the Home Office at this time to make anyinquiry into the facts of the case. They seem to havecontented themselves with referring to the reportof Beck's trial in the Central Criminal Court SessionsPaper and the Times newspaper, but made no examina-tion into the case of Smith.During the next two years of his imprisonmentAdolf Beck addressed personally six petitions to theHome Office. They are written in imperfect English.The unfortunate man begins to believe himself the

victim of a deliberate conspiracy, and accuses hissolicitor, Mr Button, of acting in collusion with hisenemies. He says that before his arrest he had beenwarned of a plot to ruin him. It is little to be wonderedat that an innocent man, sent to seven years' penalservitude, with absolute proof of his innocence to behad for the asking, should fancy himself the victimof persecution. He protests his innocence emphati-cally. ' In whatsoever situation, misfortune or faults(sic) I may have had, I have never been guilty ofobtaining anything by false pretences, nor have Iever stolen the value of a halfpenny from man orwoman in my lifetime.' In spite of Beck's unjustsuspicions, Mr Button was still active on his behalf.He had in vain endeavoured to obtain from theCommissioners of Police leave to inspect the officialpapers in the Smith case; he had in vain endeavouredto obtain an interview with the Home Secretary inorder to lay before him the facts of the case. But atlast, on May 25th, 1898, he makes a communication20


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Adolf Beckto the Home Office, which, if it proved correct, mustestablish once and for all that Adolf Beck and JohnSmith were two different persons. He writes :' I have been informed that it is believed the man,John Smith, alias John Weissenfells, was of theJewish persuasion and would therefore have beencircumcised in accordance with the custom of his race.I do not know whether this appears on the recordsof John Smith, but it can of course be easily provedthat Beck has not been circumcised.' The HomeOffice made the necessary inquiries. The fact ofSmith's circumcision, known to the prison authoritiessince 1879, came to light. There could now be nolonger any question that Adolf Beck was not the JohnSmith whose prison number he had been wearing forthe last two years.Was this discovery to be the means of proving theinnocence of Beck and procuring his pardon and

release ? Would it lead to an examination into all thefacts of the Smith case and his own? Here is theminute of the official of the Home Office on receiptof the information :

'I believe Mr Button is so far right that Beck andSmith are different persons, which is shown by themarks on them which I have compared, which differ

widely and which curiously have never been referredto before; but this does not prove that Beck was notguilty of the many offences of the same kind of whichhe was convicted, he having been satisfactorily identi-fied by numerous women whom he had defrauded,though it does prove that the police witness wasmistaken and shows how invaluable in such a casewould have been the measurement system.'

It does not seem to have occurred to the writer ofthis minute that if the police witnesses, Spurrell and21


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Last Studies in Criminologyanother constable who had been in charge of Smith'scase in 1 877, had ' knowing what was at stake ' swornat Westminster police court in 1896 that they had'no doubt whatever ' that Beck was Smith, it was verypossible that these ten women might have made asimilar mistake in regard to Beck's identity. Everyconsideration should now have urged a close andsearching inquiry into the facts of Smith's case, andan examination of the documents in that case whichwere admitted to be in the same handwriting as thosein the case of Beck. If Beck and Smith were provedlydifferent men, and the handwriting of the documentsin the two cases the same, then clearly the writing inSmith's case could not be, as Gurrin had declared,the disguised writing of Adolf Beck. The HomeOffice took no steps to ascertain the truth as to thisquestion of handwriting; the matter was left un-investigated. What they did was to send the petitionof Beck, the letters of Mr Button, the reports of thetwo trials, and a note of the distinctive marks of Smithand Beck to the Common Serjeant, Sir Forrest Fulton,and ask for his opinion on the case and the representa-tions made on Beck's behalf.

Here, in the run of persistent ill luck, which seemedat every turn determined to defeat any attempt tobring about the rehabilitation of Beck, occurred amisunderstanding of most unhappy consequence.In his reply to the Home Office, Sir Forrest Fultonwrote: ' I do not understand if the paper sent to me,purporting to be a record of the marks of Smith andBeck respectively, is official or not. I observe thatMr Button, in one of his communications, says he isinformed that Smith was a Jew and was circumcised.It is, of course, obvious that if at the time of his con-viction, Smith was circumcised and Beck is not so,they cannot be one and the same person.' Seeing thatSir Forrest Fulton was clearly in doubt as to the official22


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Adolf Beckcharacter of the information in regard to Smith'scircumcision, it would seem that he should havereceived a definite assurance of that fact. This wasnot given him, nor was this fact of the circumcisionof Smith communicated by the Home Office to theTreasury or to the police. Mr Murdock of theHome Office, though he discussed the case of Beckwith Superintendent Freest of the police, and theevidence of the women in regard to a certain scar,never mentioned to him the discovery of Smith'scircumcision.The rest of Sir Forrest Fulton's reply was un-favourable to Beck; he reiterated the overwhelmingcharacter of the evidence of the women as to Beck'sidentity, and wrote that he should be inclined toregard the South American alibi with great suspicion,requiring, before it could be acted on, the moststringent and searching examination. He had, hewrote, regarded the crime as exceptionally cowardly,selfish and cruel, and fully deserving the very severesentence he had passed upon it.

Stringent and searching examination into all thefacts of Beck's appeal was the one thing the HomeOffice declined to give. Instead we find the minutedated July I5th, i

' The Common Serjeant has not the slightestdoubt that the allegation that Beck is the manwho was convicted of a similar offence in 1877is open to doubt, but this is really immaterial,as Beck is punished only for the offence provedin 1896.Nil: But let the convict be given a fresh prisonnumber so that his identity with John Smith shouldnot be affirmed.'And in the following month, the convict Beck, whohad now been removed to Portland prison, was

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Last Studies in Criminologyticketed with the number W. 78 instead of that ofJohn Smith D.W. 523.To say that it is ' open to doubt ' whether a mancircumcised in 1879 could be the same man as oneuncircumcised in 1898, seems like flying in the faceof nature. From this moment the fact that Beck wasnot, and could not be, Smith, could admit of no doubtwhatever; it was an absolute certainty. It provedconclusively the second step in the defence putforward on Beck's behalf; it gave new weight to theevidence of the alibi and added significance to thepoint urged by Beck in the poor English of his petitionsthat in examining * that man's trie! of 77 ther will befound the same story as told by these women againstme, the same cheques, the same handwriting andsignatur.'On July 27th the Home Office informed Mr Buttonthat the Secretary of State did not feel justified inrecommending any interference with the sentencepassed on Adolf Beck. Two extraneous circumstanceshad about this time helped to influence the HomeOffice in their unfavourable attitude towards Beck'spetitions. After his sentence, the Swedish Ministerhad called at the Home Office and got permission fora solicitor, acting for the Legation, to see Beck and gointo his case. Nothing more was heard of any actionon the part of the Swedish Minister. ' If there hadbeen anything in his case,' says an official minute ofApril 1 5th, 1897,' the Home Office would have heardof it from the Legation ere this.' The other circum-stance was a statement made to the Home Office bySuperintendent Froest to the effect that since Beck'sconviction, the particular form of swindling loosewomen, of which he had been found guilty, hadentirely ceased.

Still Beck continued to address to the Home Officepassionate appeals for justice. ' It is only,' he writes,24


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Adolf Beck' by the help and infinit mercy of God, that I am notby now a lunatic or a total wreck in healt, from whatI have endured.' He urged yet another point asdisproving his identity with the man who had swindledthe women. They had said that the man had a scaron the right side of his neck. The official descriptionof Smith showed that he had such a scar, that of Beckthat he had not. What occurred at the trial of Beckin relation to this alleged scar is not quite clear.According

to the SessionsReport,

one of the womensaid that the man had * a little scar by the right side ofhis neck under the ear.' At Mr Gill's request shewent up to the dock and pointed to the angle of theprisoner's jaw, at the place where she said the markwas, and then said, ' I do not see it now.' Anotherwoman, Ottilie Meissonier, said that the man ' hadsome mark just below the right jaw.' In cross-examination she said that she could see it now, andsome ofthejury stated that they saw the mark described.At the time that Beck petitioned the Home Office onthis point, his petition was accompanied by a reportfrom the medical officer of the prison, stating thathe had carefully examined the prisoner's neck andcould not find any scar there. In addition the HomeOffice had the official descriptions of the two menwhich corroborated this statement. But from anaccount given them by Superintendent Freest ofwhat took place at the trial, which differed in somerespects from that in the Sessions Paper, they wouldseem to have satisfied themselves that there wasnothing in Beck's plea.To the end Beck persevered in his prayers for

justice. He believed himself to be the victim of a' monster complot ' ; he had been tricked and abused ;he begged that he might be set free to attend to hisbusiness; in the name of God he besought HisMajesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home


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Last Studies in CriminologyDepartment to give him that justice, by the law ofGod and man his due. At length on July 8th, 1901,after undergoing five years of his sentence, Beck wasreleased on licence from Pentonville prison.From the moment of leaving prison, Beck sethimself by all the means in his power to vindicate hisgood name, to get at the bottom of the conspiracywhich, as he thought, had worked his ruin and in-cidentally killed his mother. She had died of griefat the time of his arrest. A poor man, Beck spentnearly

1000 in his attempts to prove to the worldthat he was an honest man. One of his first visitsafter his release was to Mr G. R. Sims. Never fromthe very first had Mr Sims, himself a man of theworld and one who in his time has rubbed shoulderswith all manner of men, good, bad, and indifferent,doubted for a moment Beck's innocence and the factthat his conviction had resulted from some terriblemistake. ' I had known Adolf Beck,' he writes,'since 1885, and all the juries in the world wouldnever have convinced me that he was a petty thief,a cowardly swindler of foolish women.' Soon afterhis trial, Mr Sims had written an article in which hehad pointed out the impossibility of Beck being JohnSmith. After his release, Beck brought him articlesthat had appeared in certain newspapers, extollingthe police and pointing out the great credit due tothem for ' laying by the heels the meanest and mostcontemptible scoundrel of modern times.' Mr Simswent to the editors of these newspapers and succeededin convincing them of the injustice of these ' com-munications.' On condition of Beck guaranteeingthat, in the event of his innocence being proved, hewould not take any proceedings against them, thesenewspapers now wrote articles calling for a reconsidera-tion of his case. The Investigation Committee ofthe Salvation Army lent their aid in Beck's cause.2.6


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Adolf BeckIt seemed possible that the unfortunate man wouldin a short time be in possession of money sufficientto enable him to prosecute his vindication with evengreater vigour. But the time was not given to him.In August of 1903, John Smith, whose movementshad been lost sight of, is known to have been in Londonagain.On April I5th in the following year, Adolf Beckwas re-arrested on a charge of swindling a womannamed Pauline Scott.

Miss Scott had on March 22nd met a gentleman inOxford Street, who was good enough to ask her forher address. He gave his as the Hyde Park Hotel.Next day he called on her. He gave his name as LordWilloughby. He could not stay long, he said, as hehad to go to the House of Lords. He wished to makeMiss Scott a little present, and wrote out a chequewith which she was to buy some dresses. He expresseda further wish to make her a present of jewellery and,in order to get the measurement of her ringer, borrowedone of her rings. He took also a watch of hers, whichhe was to have repaired and, as his valet had carelesslylet him come out without his money, his lordship wasgood enough to borrow a pound from Miss Scott topay for lunch. In the Edgware Road they parted.Needless to say, Miss Scott never saw Lord Willoughbyor her jewellery again, and his lordship's cheque turnedout to be bogus.The same day Miss Scott made a complaint to thepolice. Detective-Inspector Ward came at once tothe conclusion that Miss Scott was another victim ofAdolf Beck, who had no doubt recommenced theswindling practices of which he had been convictedeight years before. On March 3ist he took her toa restaurant in Oxford Street, which Beck was in thehabit of frequenting. She stayed in the restaurantfor nearly two hours, but failed to identify Beck,

L.S.C. c 27


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Last Studies in Criminologythough he was there for a short time. On April 1 5thWard took her to the corner of Store Street, TottenhamCourt Road, where Beck was then living. When,about half-past nine in the morning, Beck came outof his house, Miss Scott went up and spoke tohim.After five minutes' conversation she told Ward that

this was the man who had swindled her. Ward tookBeck into custody. Beck said that it was all a mistake,a trumped up charge. His protests were unavailing;he was lodged in Paddington police station. Later,four other women identified Beck as a man who, aboutthis time, had swindled them in exactly the same wayas Lord Willoughby had employed with Miss Scott.One woman, who had been similarly defrauded, failedto identify Beck as the man.On April 23rd, Beck was charged at the MarylebonePolice Court with defrauding certain women, and onMay 1 9th, committed to take his trial at the CentralCriminal Court. Mr Sims, who had prosecuted forthe Treasury in 1896, appeared against Beck at thepolice court, and Gurrin gave the same evidence asto the similarity of handwriting, which he admittedsubsequently to have been incorrect. At the end ofthe magisterial hearing, Beck said: 'Before God myMaker I am absolutely innocent of every charge thathas been brought against me. I have not spoken to,or seen any, of these women before they were setagainst me by the detectives. I can bring manywitnesses to prove I have acted honestly in my businessin the city from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. I ask the Press tohelp me to get all evidence in my support from mysolicitor.' The present writer was told by a barristerwho had heard in court Beck's vehement protestationsof his innocence, that for some reason or other, whetherthe foreign accent, the imperfect English, or some-thing unfortunate in the manner of the man, they28


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Adolf Beckwere not convincing another illustration of the well-known fact that, in their repudiation of guilt, theinnocent are only too frequently less convincing thanthe guilty.The Treasury in the brief, supplied to counsel forthe prosecution at the approaching trial, commentedin an unfriendly spirit on Beck's declaration of inno-cence. ' Though he called upon Heaven,' it said,* to witness, and the Press to take note that he was aninnocent man, he did not venture to go into thewitness box.' Before the second arrest of Beck, thePrisoners' Evidence Act (1898) had been passed,giving to an accused person the right to go into thewitness-box and be examined on oath. That Beckdid not avail himself of this privilege at the policecourt was made a matter of unfavourable comment.There is no doubt that if a prisoner has a good answerto the charge against him, it is wiser that he shouldmake it at the earliest opportunity.Beck had been committed for trial to the Junesessions of the Central Criminal Court. The in-formation in possession of the Home Office as toBeck and Smith being two distinct persons had notreached the Treasury. In the brief for the prosecutionit was stated: ' This will be the third time upon whichthe prisoner has stood in the dock of the CentralCriminal Court charged with offences of a likedescription.' Therefore, once again, though theiridentity had been conclusively disproved, Beck wasto stand in the dock as John Smith. His trial would,in the ordinary course of events, have taken placebefore Sir Forrest Fulton, who had now been promotedfrom Common Serjeant to Recorder of London. Butthe Recorder disliked trying the same man twice,and it was arranged that Beck should be tried beforeMr Justice Grantham, the High Court judge attendingthe sessions.

29


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Last Studies in CriminologyThe hearing took place on June 27th, 1904. Mr

(now Sir) Charles Mathews and Mr (now Sir) Archi-bald Bodkin, led for the prosecution, and Mr Leycesterdefended. Beck, who had been obliged to change hissolicitor a week before the trial, applied in vain for apostponement. Four women gave evidence identify-ing Beck as the man who had swindled them at variousdates in August 1903 and March 1904, and theevidence of a fifth, who was ill, was read. Gurrinwent into the box again, and swore that the chequesand other exhibits in the case were in the same hand-writing as that of Beck, but * studiously disguised.'Beck, in giving evidence on his own behalf, as he wasnow entitled to do under the Prisoners' Evidence Act,said that on three of the dates in March given by thewomen, he was in the City on business, but he calledno evidence in support of his statements. His solicitor,who had known Beck for fifteen years, went into thebox and said that he disagreed with the conclusionsof Gurrin in regard to the likeness between Beck'shandwriting and that of the documents in the case.The issue as to the identity of Beck and Smith wasnever raised by the defence. It was not until sometime after the trial that Mr Leycester learned the factthat Smith was a circumcised Jew and Beck not.Beck was found guilty by the jury; he was now,for the second time, convicted of offences of which hewas absolutely innocent. But the judge postponedpassing sentence. Mr Justice Grantham said after-wards that he found himself, without knowing exactlywhy, dissatisfied about the case. The prisoner'sguilt seemed to him proved, and his 'implicit faithin the accuracy of Home Office inquiries ' led himto believe in the prisoner's previous convictions.At the same time he felt that Beck was not an ordinarymember of the criminal classes, but an unfortunateman affected with a mania for duping foolish women.30


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Adolf BeckThe judge sent for the counsel for the prosecutionand defence, and expressed to them his doubts and hisintention of passing a sentence of twelve months onthe prisoner. But he could get from them nothingthat seemed to justify the uncertainty in his mind.He sent a prison doctor to see Beck, who assured himthat the man was perfectly right in his mind. Lastly,Sir William Grantham saw the detectives in the case,and they successfully ' closed the door ' on the un-defined doubt that was troubling him. He determinedon the sentence which he should pass on Beck at thefollowing July sessions at the Old Bailey.To all appearances Beck's last hope of escape fromserving a second term of imprisonment for crimeswhich he had not committed, had gone. For aughthe knew, the unhappy man was to pass through anotherlong period of undeserved shame and suffering. Buton July 7th, only a few days before the opening of thesessions at the Old Bailey, at which Beck was to havereceived sentence, a police inspector of the name ofKane happened, about eleven o'clock at night, to visitthe Tottenham Court Road police station. He hadbeen present at both trials of Beck. He was told thatthere was a man detained in the station on chargessimilar to those of which Beck had been convicted.He saw the man and satisfied himself that he was theJohn Smith convicted in 1877. Events moved withrapidity. In ten days from Kane's visit to TottenhamCourt Road police station, Beck was a free man.Of the five women who had identified Beck at hissecond trial, three now identified Smith as the manwho had defrauded them; the two other women hadgone abroad. It was impossible to trace the womenwho had given evidence against Beck at his first trialin 1896. But one was found who at that time hadrefused to identify Beck, and had therefore not beencalled as a witness at the trial. She was now shown

3 1


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Last Studies in Criminologyby the police a number of photographs including oneof Smith. This she immediately picked out fromamong them as that of the man who had swindled her.One of the women had described the swindler ascarrying a gold watch with a number of Egyptiancoins attached to it. No such watch had been tracedto Beck, but such a watch was found on Smith. Someof the Grand Hotel note-paper, which Beck had beenaccused of using, was also found in the possession ofSmith. Gurrin withdrew unreservedly his expertopinion on the identity of the handwriting of Smithwith that of Beck. His excuse that, had he known ofthe fact of Smith's circumcision and the absence ofsuch a mark on Beck, it would have modified con-siderably his judgment, does not give one much faithin graphology as a pure science.On July 29th, the King granted Adolf Beck a freepardon in respect of his two convictions in 1896 and1904.On September i^th William Thomas, alias JohnSmith, describing himself as a journalist, aged sixty-five, stood in the dock at the Old Bailey and pleadedguilty to a charge of stealing some rings and anumbrella from three women and to a previous con-viction of a similar kind at that court in 1 877.The early history of John Smith is wrapped inmystery. He said that his real name was WilliamAugustus Wyatt, that he was born in Lancashire,and had later gone to Australia, where he had takenmedical degrees. At another time he gave his nameas Meyer, and said he was an English Jew. After hisrelease from prison in 1881, he had gone to SouthAustralia and set up as a physician. In 1894, twoyears before the first arrest of Beck, he had beencharged with fraud at Bow Street, but discharged forwant of evidence. His previous history and the proofof his presence in London at the time of the offences3 2


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Adolf Beckalleged to have been committed by Beck * made itpossible,' in the words of Mr Mathews who appearedfor the prosecution, ' that he could have been theauthor of the crimes of 1896, and likely that he wasthe author of the crimes of 1904.' He was sentencedto five years' penal servitude.

It was proposed at first by the authorities to giveBeck a sum of^2000 ' in full settlement of all demands'as compensation for his sufferings, and there the matterwould have ended. But public opinion had beenaroused. Mr G. R. Sims had enlisted the help of theDaily Mail, making known to the public at large thefacts of Beck's case. It was realised that a gross andshocking miscarriage of justice had occurred, thatour vaunted safeguards for the protection of theinnocent man accused of crime had been powerlessto prevent the prolonged torture of a helpless foreigner.The case was brought before Parliament, and theHome Secretary appointed a Committee of Inquiryto investigate the circumstances of the two convictions.The committee consisted of Sir Richard Henn Collins,then Master of the Rolls, Sir Spencer Walpole, adistinguished civil servant, and Sir John Edge, anex-Indian Chief Justice. They sat for five days,during which the judges, counsel solicitors, HomeOffice and police officials concerned in the two caseswere examined, as well as Beck himself. Thefindings of the committee may be summarised asfollows :THAT the conduct of the police had been dictatedby nothing but a sense of duty, and had been

perfectly correct.THAT the omission of the prison authorities tostate the fact of Smith's circumcision in therecords of 1877 and 1881, was the primarycause of the miscarriage of justice.

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Last Studies in CriminologyTHAT the ruling of the Common Serjeant at thetrial ofBeck was wrong, and led as a consequenceto a mis-trial.THAT the action of the Home Office in dealingwith the case in 1898 was defective.THAT there was no shadow of foundation for anyof the charges made against Beck, or anyreason for supposing that he had any connectionwith them whatever.

The committee did not report in favour of thecreation of a Court of Criminal Appeal, but threeyears later such a court was set up.Adolf Beck received finally 5000 compensation.He died of pleurisy in the Middlesex Hospital in theDecember of 1909. For two years before his deathhe had been in poor circumstances.

Nothing prospered with Adolf Beck, but nature,according to his friends, had happily bestowed onhim a temperament of undefeated optimism; no manever had greater need of such a thing.

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THE EXECUTIONOF LESURQUES


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The Execution of LesurquesABOUT nine o'clock on the night of April 26th, 1796,(8th Floreal in the year IV. of the Republic) themail travelling from Paris to Lyons was attacked,nearly two miles beyond Lieursaint, at a distance ofsome five-and-twenty miles from Paris. The courierand postilion were brutally murdered, and the contentsof the mail, including a sum of seven million livres inassignats, despatched to the army of Italy fightingunder General Bonaparte, stolen. Besides the courierand the postilion, there had travelled in the mail apassenger, a dark-haired, dreary and taciturn individualin a brown coat and round hat, who carried as his onlyluggage a sabre. He had disappeared after the crime,and with him one of the horses attached to the mail.On the scene of the robbery, the bridge of Pouilly,there were found a gray cloak lined with blue, abroken sabre, inscribed somewhat ironically on oneside of the blade,

*

Honour is my guide,' and on theother, ' For the safety of my country,' its sheath, ared leather belt, the blade of a knife, and a silver giltchain spur that had been mended with a piece of thickthread. Another sabre and its sheath were picked uplater on the road to Paris. It was proved that, duringthe afternoon of April 27th, four horsemen had beenseen by various persons at different points on theroad between Paris and Lieursaint. But it was somedays before any trace could be found of these suspiciouscavaliers.

Inquiries showed that the solitary passenger inthe mail, in booking his place, had given the nameLaborde. Further investigation revealed the fact37


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Last Studies in Criminologythat, at five o'clock on the morning after the crime,a man named Etienne had brought four sweatinghorses to a stable in Paris. The same evening,accompanied by a Jewish corn-merchant, calledBernard, the same man had taken the horses away.The police discovered that Etienne was the Christianname of a certain Couriol, who with his mistress,Madeleine Breban, had left his lodging in Paris onthe night of April 27th, and gone to the house of ahawker named Richard. They had stayed there untilMay 6th, when they left Paris for Chateau-Thierry.There they were living at the house of an official,named Gohier, employed in the military transportservice, when they were arrested. In the possessionof Couriol was found nearly a fifth of the money andvaluables stolen from the Lyons mail. At the time ofCouriol's arrest a colleague of Gohier, Guenot byname, was staying in the house. He was a gray-haired,sharp-nosed, thick-lipped man, strongly marked withthe small-pox. Guenot had lodged in Paris at thehouse of Richard at the same time as Couriol and hismistress. Transport officer at Douai, his native town,Guenot had there made the acquaintance of Richardand, having occasion to come to Paris on business, hadtaken up his abode with his compatriot. Both Richardand the Jew, Bernard, were arrested, as also an individualof the name of Bruer, a friend of Couriol, who, withRichard, had accompanied Couriol and his mistresspart of the way on their journey to Chateau-Thierry.Bruer was a bit of a philosopher; he had seen somuch of the world that nothing, not even arrest,could surprise him; he had a round face and grayeyes.Etienne Couriol, to whom his mistress said thatshe believed the sabre bearing the inappropriateinscriptions belonged, is described as a dark-com-plexioned, black-haired individual, of a Roman cast38


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The Execution of Lesurquesof countenance, with a nondescript mouth. Arrestedin bed, Couriol, after the first pardonable shockof surprise, resumed his natural imperturbability,described himself on apparently insufficient groundsas a silk-merchant, and explained the presence of overa million livres in bills and notes among his effects,as being the whole extent of a fortune made in honesttrade. By the quantity and quality of his wardrobethis young man of eight-and-twenty would seem tohave been something of a dandy. As he left Chateau-Thierry in custody, he assured his friend Gohier thatin two or three days he would return to fetch hisproperty. But these sanguine anticipations were notrealised.

In Paris, a magistrate of the name of Daubantonhad undertaken the investigation into the circum-stances of the robbery of the Lyons mail. Of allthose accused, Couriol seemed to be the most deeplyimplicated. A great deal would depend on theevidence of the persons, who, on the road from Paristo Lieursaint, had seen the four horsemen on theday of the crime, and on their power to identify themwith any of those already under arrest.On May i ith, a number of these witnesses had beensummoned to Paris to the office ofDaubanton. Thitherthat morning went Guenot of Douai who, it will beremembered, had been lodging at Chateau-Thierryin the house of his colleague, Gohier, at the time ofthe arrest of Couriol. On that occasion, his papershad been seized and taken to Paris, and he was nowon his way to Daubanton's office to ask for the returnof them. As he passed through the streets, he met afriend and fellow-citizen, one Joseph Lesurques.This Joseph Lesurques was thirty-three years of age,fair-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking, with a highforehead and regular features; one of his fingers wascrippled, and he had a scar on the right side of his

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Last Studies in Criminologyface. He was a man of independent means. He hadmade his fortune in Douai, but left his native citya year before, and since then had been living in Paris.Gue"not told his friend Lesurques the nature of hiserrand, and asked him to accompany him to themagistrate's office to speak to his identity. Though,he said, he did not care about frequenting such places,Lesurques consented. When they arrived at Dauban-ton's office, the two men were shown into the ante-room, in which some twenty witnesses connected withthe affair of the Lyons mail were waiting to be examinedby the magistrate. Lesurques and Guenot had notbeen sitting there long, when two country-women,who had been watching them intently, became greatlyexcited and asked to see the magistrate without delay.Taken into his presence, one of them, named Santon,servant at an inn at Montgeron, a village betweenParis and Lieursaint, stated that she recognisedLesurques and Guenot as two of four horsemen who,about half-past two o'clock on the afternoon of April27th, had taken coffee and played billiards at the inn,in which she was employed. The other woman,Grossetete by name, servant at another inn at Mont-geron, where, during the afternoon, the four horsemenhad dined, said that she recognised Lesurques andGuenot as two of the guests for whom she hadfetched a couple of pipes and some tobacco.Daubanton sent first for Guenot. When thelatter asked for his papers, he was told to his astonish-ment that he must consider himself at the disposal ofjustice. Daubanton questioned him closely. Guenotsaid that on April 27th, the day of the robbery of themail, he had been travelling from Chateau-Thierryto Paris. He had met Couriol first on April 28th atthe house of Richard, and had breakfasted with himon the following day; he denied having ever been inhis company before that date.40


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The Execution of LesurquesAfter Guenot, the magistrate sent for and inter-

rogated Lesurques. In answer to his questions,Lesurques said that he had been a year in Paris andhad never left the city during that time. On the I ithor 1 2th Flordal, three or four days after the robberyof the mail, he had breakfasted with Guenot at thehouse of Richard, whom he knew as a fellow-citizenof Douai, and had there on that occasion met a darkman of the name of Etienne (Couriol). Lesurquesdescribed himself as a man of means; he had acquireda sufficient fortune by buying and selling land con-fiscated by the revolutionary Government. Askedhow it was that he had in his possession an identifica-tion paper in the name of Andre* Lesurques andanother which was blank, he said that the one hadbeen left with him by his cousin and the other musthave been among some papers which he had bought.Asked why, having lived in Paris a year, he had nottaken out an identification paper in his own name,he said that, as he was always at home in goodtime at night, he had not thought it necessary,and had left all his own papers with his agentat Douai. At the end of their examinations,both Guenot and Lesurques found themselves underarrest.The account which Lesurques had given of himselfwas substantially true. He was living at his ease onan income of 10,000 livres a year. His propertywas estimated after his death at a total value of 1 85,000livres. Lesurques was married and the father of threechildren. He was inclined to be expensive andartistic in his tastes, frequenting the society of paintersand other men of art. The fact that he kept a mistressnot a very remarkable circumstance considering theextreme laxity of public morals under the Directorydoes not seem to have interfered with the love anddevotion of his wife and children. This man now


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Last Studies in Criminologyfound himself accused of complicity in a sordid andbrutal crime.As the case proceeded, the evidence against Lesur-

ques became more serious than it had at first appeared.Of ten witnesses from Lieursaint and the neighbour-hood, seven swore positively that Lesurques was oneof the four horsemen seen on the road on April 27th,and three expressed a belief that he was one of them.It was true that they varied in their descriptions ofhim; one described the coat he was wearing as blue,another as flesh-coloured, and a third as light gray.But their number was formidable, greater than inthe case of any other of the accused men. Eightwitnesses swore to the identity of Couriol as one ofthe horsemen, four to that of Guenot, three to that ofBruer, and two to that of the Jew, Bernard. Of thosewho swore to the identity of Lesurques, the mostpositive, besides the women Santon and Grossetete,was a woman named Alfroy, coming from Lieursaint,who identified Couriol and Lesurques as two menwhom on the evening of April 27th she had seen passtwo or three times in front of her door. Champault,an innkeeper at Lieursaint, well remembered Lesurquesas one of four horsemen who had called at his inn onthe day of the robbery, and said that he had asked hiswife for a piece of string with which to mend his spur.The wife corroborated her husband's statement.Gillet, who kept cows at Lieursaint, identified Lesur-ques as one of three horsemen who had passed infront of his house about a quarter-past five the sameevening, and said that he recollected him the moresurely because of his likeness to a friend of his. Astable-boy at the inn at Montgeron where the fourhorsemen had dined, was sure that he recognisedLesurques as having been the first to arrive at theinn, about half-past one that afternoon.

Against the evidence of identification Lesurques42


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The Execution of Lesurquesset up an alibi. He said that during the morning ofApril 2yth he had spent two hours in the shop of afriend, Legrand, a goldsmith and jeweller, and thathe had then gone with another friend, Hilaire Ledru,a painter, to his cousin Andre Lesurques' house inthe Rue Montorgueil, where he was staying untilhis new house in the Rue Montmartre should beready. At six o'clock in the evening he had gone outfor a walk in the streets, had there met Guenot, andtogether they had gone to a cafe and had a glass of wine.

Shortly after his arrest Lesurques wrote to a friendin Douai:

' My friend, since I came to Paris, I have met withnothing but unpleasantness; but I did not anticipate,and could not have anticipated, the misfortune whichovertakes me to-day. You know me well, and youknow that I could never stain myself with a crime;and yet I am accused of the worst of all crimes. Themere thought of it makes me shudder. I find myselfimplicated in the case of the murder and robberyof the courier of the Lyons mail. Three women andtwo men whom I don't know, not even where theycome from (for you know that I have never left Paris),have had the audacity to state that they recognised meas a man who had come to their house on horseback.You know that I have never ridden a horse since Icame to Paris. You can realise the importance ofsuch evidence as this, which may well result in ajudicial murder. Help me by searching your memoryand trying to recollect where I was, and who were thepeople I saw in Paris at the date on which they have theimpudence to say that I was away from Paris (I thinkthe yth or 8th of last month), that I may be able toconfound these infamous slanderers, and make themsuffer the punishment prescribed by law.

'LESURQUES.'L.S.C. D 43


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Last Studies in CriminologyOn May 22nd, the preliminary investigation intothe case which was being held by Daubanton in Paris,

was quashed on the ground of illegality, and re-openedbefore the criminal court at Melun, within whosejurisdiction the crime had been, committed. Thisnew investigation took place before a Jury of Accusa-tion, a body somewhat similar to our grand juries.The President of the Jury examined the witnesses,and then submitted to his colleagues an Act of Accusa-tion,

on hearing which they were to decide whetherthe case for the prosecution was strong enough tosend the prisoners for trial before the criminal court.Once again Lesurques was confronted with thosewitnesses who had sworn to his identity as one of theassassins. Asked to explain how it came about thatthese witnesses were so positive in their identificationof Guenot and himself, he replied that the situationwas inconceivable to him, as he had never left Parissince he had come to live there, had never been onthe road to Melun, and had means enough on whichto live comfortably and bring up his family. ' Thesewitnesses,' he said, ' are deceived. Unless there besome resemblance between me and one of those whomthey saw that day on the road to Melun, they cannothave honestly sworn to the truth of such a thing.'On June 2yth the President submitted to the juryhis Act of Accusation. Lesurques, Couriol, Gudnot,Bruer, Richard, and Bernard were all indicted. Thefacts of the case were stated with no scrupulous regardto accuracy, and as the result of the preliminaryinquiry, the complicity of all five in the crime washeld to be proved. The case against Lesurques wasthus presented:

' As to Joseph Lesurques, six witnesses testifyagainst him in the strongest and most positive way,some of whom have seen him on the day of the 8th44


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The Execution of LesurquesFloreal, dining at Montgeron with Couriol and Guenot,and afterwards going with them to take coffee. Andwho are they who swear to these facts? The servantswho have waited on them at the inn at which theydined, and at the cafe to which they went afterwards.There is a citizen, whose only interest in the case isto tell the truth, who is positive that he dined that dayin the same room with them; he had particularlynoticed Lesurques and also a silver or silver-gilt spurwith a spring, which Lesurques showed to Guenot,and of the advantages of which he boasted. Thisspur was found on the very spot on which the murderswere committed. Lesurques goes with his companionsto Lieursaint, three witnesses swear to having seenhim there and identify him, and the innkeeper at whosehouse they stopped at Lieursaint, swears that one ofthem mended his spur with some string; the spur ofLesurques, found on the scene of the crime and formingone of the exhibits in the case, has been mended witha piece of string. Another witness swears to havingseen Couriol and Lesurques pass before his door atLieursaint three times during the evening; it is anestablished fact in the case that Couriol and hiscompanions stayed some time in Lieursaint; and itis certain that he had not passed the night in his ownhouse. If Joseph Lesurques is asked where he spentthe afternoon and evening of the 8th Floreal, he repliesthat he spent them in Paris, but there is no proof ofthis. He is arrested at the magistrate's office on thecomparison of his description with that of the murderersof the courier of the mail, and on the positive testimonyof two witnesses. Asked for his passport or identifica-tion paper, he has to confess that he has not goteither, though he has been living nearly a year inParis. There are found in his pockets two identifica-tion papers, one in the name of his cousin, AndreLesurques, the other blank, but bearing the names

45


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Last Studies in Criminologyof the president and secretary of the section, so thatit could be filled in at any moment by a person desiringto use it. Asked how he comes to be in possession ofthese documents, he answers that the first one, hiscousin's, was in his pocket by accident, and that thesecond, which by the way is in a very good state ofpreservation, is merely a scrap of paper which happenedto be among some old papers bought by his cousin.If to all this be added the facts that since the com-mission of the crime he has frequently seen Gue"not,Richard, Couriol, and Bruer; that he has seen themall the time until their departure for Chateau-Thierry;that since their return from there he has never leftGuenot; and lastly that he is living in Paris at con-siderable expense and beyond his means, such as theyare known to have been at Douai, his native town,where he alleges that he had made a fortune by buyingand selling national property since the revolution;considering all these facts there can be no doubt thathe is one of the murderers of the courier of the mailand the postilion Audebert, or at least an accompliceof the murderers, sharing with them in the fruits ofthe crime.'A further description of Lesurques is given at theend of the Act of Accusation:* Joseph Lesurques, sergeant in the Auvergne

regiment in 1790, claims to have made, by buying andselling national property, a considerable fortune, whichhe estimates as bringing in an annual income of10,000 livres in specie, but his claim is refuted by theauthorities of his native town, who say that he hasmade a fortune sufficient to live comfortably whilstworking, and for the rest describe him as a man of nocharacter and very extravagant. Joseph Lesurquesis found at Paris without legal status, and his situation46


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The Execution of Lesurquesis so dubious that he has neither passport nor identifica-tion paper, and therefore cannot claim to be a citizenof Douai or Paris.'

In many respects this Act of Accusation is unfairin its presentation of the case against Lesurques.The spur fpund on the scene of the crime is assumedto have been his, but there was no evidence to proveit; Lesurques said that he had not used a spur fora year, and that his own were old and without springs.It is said that ' there was no proof ' of the alibi set upby Lesurques, whereas he had sixteen witnesses readyto come forward and support it. He is described ashaving been frequently in the company of Couriol;but Lesurques said that he had met him only on oneoccasion, at breakfast at the house of Richard, wherehis friend Guenot was then lodging, nor was thereany evidence to contradict this statement. Hisfinancial position is misrepresented. Lesurques'fortune after his death amounted to 185,000 francs.His character is traduced. Twenty-one respectableinhabitants of Douai, including two commissaries ofpolice, had signed a document stating that they knewnothing against the moral or political character ofLesurques, but on the contrary, knew him to be anhonest man above all suspicion. An official reporton his character, coming from Douai, described himas honest and capable, very sociable and generousto a fault, and possessed of a substantial fortune;the only qualification to this otherwise satisfactorycharacter was a tendency on the part of Lesurques tofamiliar association with actresses, to enjoying partieson horseback, and to a certain extravagance, whichmight one day compromise his fortune. In the Actof Accusation, the favourable features in the characterof Lesurques are entirely suppressed, and the un-favourable given exaggerated prominence.

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Last Studies in CriminologyOn the strength of this indictment, the Jury ofAccusation sent all the accused for trial before the

criminal court of Melun, but the prisoners, availingthemselves of a right of choice, elected to be triedbefore that of Paris. Impatient of delay, Guenot andLesurques petitioned the Minister of Justice, Merlinof Douai, that the trial of the case might be expedited.They pointed out that for three months they hadsuffered the horror of imprisonment under the weightof an atrocious accusation. Strong in their innocence,they had sought the fullest investigation, but theirprayers had not been heeded. Though ten days hadelapsed since they had been sent for trial, they com-plained that they had received no notification of thefact which, according to law, they should have receivedwithin twenty-four hours of the decision of the jury.* In this situation ' wrote the

petitioners,' from their

prison cell they address you as head of the administra-tion of justice, and though they might ask for yourconsideration as fellow-citizens, it is not a favour theyseek, but a right. The hour of their trial, or ratherthe moment when their innocence will be acknowledgedand declared, cannot without injustice be furtherdelayed.'The trial was fixed to take place on August 2nd.During their detention, Lesurques and Guenot hadheld themselves studiously aloof from their fellow-prisoners. A royalist officer, detained as a prisonerin the Conciergerie, relates how he got to knowLesurques by the visits paid him daily by his wifeand little children. On the first day of the trial, hedescribes how Lesurques, as he passed through theprison on his way to the court, knelt down and claspinghis hands together exclaimed, ' God! thou knowest myinnocence; I hope that thou wilt make it known! 'The presiding judge at the trial of Lesurques wasJerome Gohier, formerly an advocate, a staunch and48


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The Execution of Lesurquesunbending supporter of the revolution. He after-wards became a member of the Directory and was oneof the few who, during the coup d'etat of Brumaire,had the courage to stand up to Bonaparte. Severe,uncompromising and honest in his principles, he wasnot a man of the world and, as the trial of Lesurquesshowed, lacked altogether the judicial temperament.It would have been more fortunate for Lesurqueshad he been tried before Laurent, the colleague ofGohier in the criminal court, conspicuous as a judgefor his fairness and impartiality. Lesurques wasdefended by one Guinier. The order of advocateshad been suppressed during the revolution, butprisoners were allowed an ' official defender.' Guinier,who represented Lesurques in that capacity, had notbeen an advocate before the suppression of the order,nor did he become one when, eight years later, it wasrestored to its privileges.There is no full report of the trial of Lesurques;only certain incidents are described which stand outclearly as affecting the result. The first day of thehearing was taken up with the evidence of identifi-cation, and, except for the fact that the woman Grosse-tete was unable to come to the court, that evidenceremained as serious as ever against Lesurques. Hisgreat hope lay in being able to prove his alibi. It wason the second day of the trial that the witnesses forthe defence were heard. The first of these, called onbehalf of Lesurques, was his friend, the jewellerLegrand. He said that Lesurques had spent the morn-ing of the 8th Floreal in his shop, and that they hadbeen there together from about half-past nine in themorning until between half-past one and two in theafternoon. Asked by the judge how he was able tofix so precisely this particular day, he said that herecollected that on the same day he had sold someear-rings and a silver spoon to a fellow-jeweller of the

49


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Last Studies in Criminologyname of Aldenhoff, and that his day-book showed thetransaction to have taken place on the 8th Floreal.The judge asked for the book. The defender ofLesurques handed it up to him. Gohier examinedit closely and then exclaimed indignantly, that herewas a clear attempt to deceive the court; the bookshowed that the original figure of the date of the entryhad been a 9, and that this had been deliberatelychanged into an 8. Lesurques and his defenderlooked again at the book and were obliged to admitthat the judge was right; the figure had been altered,though the fact had until then escaped their notice.The indignation of Gohier was extreme. On theapplication of the Public Prosecutor, the tremblingLegrand was placed under arrest, and in these un-favourable circumstances the remaining witnesses forLesurques were examined.

jHilaire Ledru, the painter, said that he had dinedwith Lesurques and his family during the afternoonof the 8th Floreal, and that in the evening, after dinner,they had walked on the boulevard. Aldenhoff, whohad dined with Lesurques the same day, confirmedthis evidence, as did one, Baudart, who had supped withLesurques that night. Five workmen who had beenengaged in papering the walls of Lesurques' new house,were ready to swear that Lesurques had given them agratuity on the day of the 8th Floreal, but the judgescouted their evidence. The appearance in the boxof the mistress of Lesurques, Eugenie Dargence, didnot help his case. She said that she had seen Lesurquesduring the evening of the 8th Floreal, and that shecould not be mistaken, because for some months shehad been in the habit of seeing him every day. Thejudge made her admit that she did not know thenames of the months which, in the revolutionarycalendar, came before and after Floreal, nor how manydays there were in the months. So rough was the50


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The Execution of LesurquesPresident's treatment of the witnesses for the defence,that one of them, sworn in the usual form to givehis evidence ' without hatred ' said to him, ' Yes,Citizen President, and what is more important, withoutfear, in spite of all that is being done here to intimi-date the witnesses.' The day ended disastrously forLesurques.The next day he fared little better. Legrand,between two gendarmes, was brought before Gohier.Asked if he persisted in his original evidence, hereplied: ' I withdraw my previous statement. Itwas founded on the false date in my book, of whichfalsification I only became aware after my first de-position. This book is always on my counter, and Ican say positively that neither my wife nor I made thealteration. If I had noticed it, I should not havegiven the evidence I did. I was absolutely ignorantof it, and cannot think how the change came to bemade. But I swear I did not make it. I did notmake the alteration. I have simply been mistaken;who is responsible for it I don't know.' The judgeasked him if some of the witnesses

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