The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-03-20 00:00:00

THE EASTERN CRISIS.

SIGNATURE OF THE TREATY OF PEACE.
BELGRADE, March 13.
The treaty of peace between Servia and Bulgaria
to-day received the signatures of King Milan and M.
Garashunine, the Premier. M. Zankovics leaves this
evening for Bucharest with the document. General
Horvatovics will he appointed commander-in-chief of
the entire army. It has been decided to form three
new battalions.

BELGRADE, March 15.
King Milan has not accepted the resiffnation of the
Ministers, who returned here from Nish this after-
noon. The situat:on, therefore, remains uncht.aged.
Traffic across the Servo-Bulgarian frontier will be
re-opened immediately after the exchange of the rati-
fications of the peace treaty. Ljubobratich. the
Volunteer Commander, has been appointed Prefect
of Pirot.

CONSTANTINOPLE, March 15.
A Cabinet Council was held yesterday, at which
was discussed the Protocol to be submitted to the
Conference, expressing in the form amended by the
Ambassadors the sanction of the Powers to the Turco-
Bulgarian agreement.

CONSTANTINOPLE, March 16.
M. Tsanoff, the Bulgarian Minister for Foreign
Affairs, left this morning for Sofia.
Sr. PETERSBURG, March 16.
The semi-official Journal de St. Petersbourg, in an
article to-day referring to the claim made by Prince
Alexander to be appointed Governor-General ,of
Roumelia for life, observes that difficulties were not
looked for from the first author of the late troubles in
the East, who should consider himself fortunate to
have got out of them safely.

THE EXTRAORDINARY FRAUD BY
AN EMINENT SCULPTOR.

The case in which Mr. Richard Belt and his
brother, Mr. Walter Belt, were charged with con-
spiring to defraud Sir W. Neville Abdy of a large
sum of money by false pretences, and which had
occupied several days, came to a conclusion at the
Central Criminal Court on Monday, before Mr.
Justice Stephen.
The Attorney-General and Mr. Poland appeared
for tl2e prosecution; Mr. Kemp, Q.C., Mr. C.
Matthews, and Mr. Rose Innes appeared for Walter
Belt; and Mr. Edward Clarke, Q.C., and Mr.
Montagu Williams for Richard Belt.
The whole of the evidence was concluded on
Saturday.
Mr. Justice Stephen, when the court assembled,
said he had received a telegram addressed to a jury-
man, in:which he was informed that his father was
dying, and asking to be relieved from attendance.
Tie was very sorry for this, but the law gave him no
power to relieve a juryman from attending, and
he regretted that he was compelled to say that
he must attend.

The juryman in question accordingly took his seat
in the jury box.
The circumstances of the case may be thus briefly
epitomised : Richard Belt, as the public learned in
the famous trial a few years ago, was a sculptor high
in the favour of the fashionable world, and specially
smiled upon by the Corporation of London, though
much less kindly regarded by his brother artists,
Academicians and others. Some three or four years
ago he became acquainted with Sir William Abdy, a
gentleman who, as subsequent events proved, was of
the clay that the unscrupulous most admire in their
wealthy friends. Soon after their acquaintance began,
Belt appears to have rendered Sir William Abdy
some services of the nature that is called "delicate,"
and of which the details still remain obscure.
But the upshot of this business was that Sir
William Abdy advanced to Belt a loan of £2OOO,
without either security or interest—a fact which,
as the judge remarked, showed that Belt possessed
considerable influence over Sir William Abdy. At
the same time Belt induced Sir William to change his
lawyer, and to pat himself into the hands of a friend
of his, a Mr. Morgan, of Stafford, who played a con-
siderable part in the later development of the story.
Soon afterwards there began the matter which was
the cause of all these tears. Sir William Abdy had a
taste for diamonds; and it occurred to Belt
,that be
might be able to gratify it. There was no question of
going to a jeweller; such people, said Belt, charge
enormous profits, and he himself happened to know
some remarkable stones which could be got for a price
far below their value. These belonged, according to
his story, to a Mrs. Morphy, a lady who had been
a mistress of the Sultan, and who had
received them from her Imperial lover. In
the end, Sir William Abdy agreed to buy jewellery
to the amount of no less than £14,263, most of it on
the understanding that it had come from this shadowy
Mrs. Morphy. Unfortunately, it was proved in the
trial to have come from a much more prosaic source.
Mr. Smith, a pawnbroker in the Brompton-road, had
sold some of it to Walter Belt for £1975, and this
was immediately resold to Sir William Abdy for
£3500. Another item was a diamond bracelet, bought
under remarkable circumstances from a Mrs. Bonsor
for £5OO, and charged to Sir William—though he
knew whence it came—at £lOOO. The same price was
charged for a pair of studs, though they had cost
"£2OO and a picture." The jewellery, however, was
not all paid for out and out. Most of it remained
in Belt's possession, while Sir William paid him
interest at six per cent. on the supposed purchase
money. Then came the dramatic denouement; a
photograph of an actress wearing jewels; Lady Abdy
jealously believing those jewels to have been given to
the actress by Sir William; explanations demanded;
the jewels taken to Messrs. Lewis and Lewis; a valuer
called in; Belt's enormous profits exposed; a quarrel
between the "two friends;" a civil action; and then
the criminal trial which has just ended.
Mr. Justice Stephen, in summing up, said the ques-
tion was whether the dealings in diamonds were honest
or were swindling transactions.
The jury retired at a quarter-past two o'clock to
deliberate upon their verdict. They returned into
court at a few minutes past three, and found Richard
Belt guilty upon the count charging him with obtain-
ing money by false pretences, and Walter Belt not
guilty.
Mr. Justice Stephen: Richard Belt, you stand con-
victed of obtaining money under false pretences,
and it is obvious that you must have carried on a
long course of dece't, and obtained a considerable
sum of money by the exercise of your influence over
a person who certainly did not show any great degree
of sense, or any great amount of strength of
character. The sentence upon you is that you be im-
prisoned and kept to hard labour for the term of 12
calendar months._ - - - -

Richard Belt: My lord! my lord!
Mr. Justice Stephen : No, not a word. You have
no right to say anything after sentence. Let him be
removed.

As Richard Belt was leaving the dock he exclaimed,
"It is the Messrs. Lewis and Mr. Lawes have brought
me to this."