The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-06-10 00:00:00

AN EXTRAORDINARY CAREER.

At the Mans Court of general gaol delivery, held at Castle
/Welton, Caetletown, Isle of Man, Oa Tuesday, Jim .1.
CoMister, a youth about eighteen years of age, was put upon
his trial on a charge of forgery. The Attorney-General and
Ur. Langhton srosecated, and Mr. Caption defended.
The prisoner has passed through a strange career
during the last six months. On account of his atten-
tion to business his master Mr. Kelly, a draper carry.
log on an extensive trade In Peel, promoted him, al-
though he was only an apprentice, to a leading position
in his eetablishment, and after a time sent him out as
a traveller. The youth took advantage of this position
to commit a most extraordinary series of robberies.
Coming in from his rounds he appeared always to have
had most successful journeys, judging from the number
of orders he seemed to have obtained. These were for
all sorts of goods, from suits of clothes and silk dresses
to books of every description. Mr. Kelly was con-
gi atulating himself upon the magnitude of the business
he was doing (thanks to the prisoner's exertions), when
he discovered that the great majority of these orders
were fictitious, and that he hai been the victim of a
wholesale system of embezzlement which had been
carried on by the prisoner.

The manner in which the swindle was found out was
as follows:—Mr. Kelly bad occasion to send some
patterns to the prisoner, and then it was found that he
was not on his beat. This aroused Mr. Kelly's sue•
pinions, and, with the aid of Sergeant Cashen, recently
of the Liverpool detective force, he prossecuted a search-
ing inquiry, which resulted in the discovery of large
quantities of goods which had been stowed away by
the prisoner in different parts of the island, and which
he had got possession of by pretending that they were
for different parties to whcm he had them entered in
his master's books. Mr. Kelly's suspicions had all
along been lulled by the prisoner from time to time
making email payments on account of the various cue.
towers which he caused his master to believe he had
obtained. Just after the disclosure of these embezzle-
ments it was discovered that the prisoner had to that
description of if once added the crime of forgery. In
the month of April he went to the Bank of Mona, in
Douglas, and presented a bill of exchange for 1:25, pur-
porting to be drawn in his favour, and accepted by two
per:ors ram I White and Ihbotson. The manag• rof
the liak of Mona declined to discount the bill unless
the prisoner got it endorsed by some one known to the
bank. The prisoner went straight away to another
bank in Donglas—that of Messrs. Dumbell, Son, and
Howard—where he was more successful, for Mr.
Dumbell, knowing Ibbotson, at once culled the bill.
A day or two afterwards it was discovered that it was
a forgery, and the prisoner, who by that time was in
custody for the embezzlement, was committed for for-
gery also.
At the general gaol delivery, on Tuesday, the first
case gone into was that of the forgery, and on his being
found guilty of that he was sentenced to seven years
transportation. The charge of embezzlement was con-
sequently not proceeded with.