The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-05-05 00:00:00

THE CASTELNATJ CASE.

A remarkable trial has just come to a conclusion
before the Assizes et Versailles. The chief prisoner,
Dr. Castelnau, is a remarkable person. He was a
man of considerable scientific attainments. About
two years ago a Republican apothecary, Martinet by
name, formed an alliance with Von Scheurer, an in-
surance agent,who conceived the idea of an ingenious
fraud, namely, to insure his own life for a large sum,
and then, by procuring a false register of death, and,
with the complicity of Martinet, getting a corpse
that could be produced as his own, to pocket the
money to be paid by the insurance companies.
Martinet, in order to carry out this fraud, persuaded
Castelnau to take a small house at Meudon, and to
that house there was presently transferred a poor
patient of Castelnau's, in the last stage of consump-
tion. He was induced to personate Von Scheurer by
the promise of good treatment and the payment
of a small sum daily. To establish the spurious
identity requisite for the completion of the
fraud, the false Von Scheurer, during the week
or two he had to live, was shown to a local practitioner
at Meudon and to other persons, so that when he died
he was registered and buried under that name. The
Insurance Companies, after some demur, could not
resist the evidence, and handed over the insurance—
over twelve thousand pounds sterling—to a girl, the
mistress of the real Von Scheurer, who palmed her-
self off on the insurance agents as his widow. Von
Scheurer took the lion's share of the spoil, and gave a
thousand pounds to Martinet, who allowed Castelnau
only four hundred. They quarrelled some twelve or
fifteen months ago, and the whole story then came out.
Von Scheurer and his mistress got away, but in the
course of last year, being traced by the insurance
companies, he committed suicide, and now Castelnau
was brought to trial. He fully confessed his share in
this transaction. The jury brought in a verdict of
guilty, with extenuating circumstances, and Castelnau
was condemned to eight years' imprisonment, and
Martinet to five years. Mariette Pronteau was
acquitted.

DUPING THE CLERGY.
At the Birmingham Police-court, Charles Edgar
‘Vhitworth, a respectably-attired man, about 30
years of age, of no fixed address, has been charged
with having obtained money by false pretences.
During the past six months the accused has made it
his business to visit the vicars at the following
places: Wolverhampton, Amblecote, near Stourhridge,
Bilston, Darlaston, Wednesbury, and Cheatle, Brows-
grove, Cannock, and I3loxwich. To them he repre-
sented that he was a reporter attached to the staff
of a Scottish newspaper, and had teen sent down
from the North to make inquiries in a special case,
which was of particular interest to the Glasgow
people. It unfortunately had happened that his
missions had been more costly than he had antici-
pated, and consequently he found himself rather short
of fut Vs. If he could trouble them for a loan of a
few pounds for a day or two, they might rely upon
him refunding it directly he returned to Glasgow.
In most caF;es, or, at any rate, a good number of them,
he managed to get the much-needed loan, and then
bid good-bye to his benefactors. Hearing nothirg
from the accused, his dupes naturally communicate
with the journal in question, only to find out that the
prisoner was unknown there, and had never been on
the reportirg staff. Warrants were then taken out
which led to his arrest. Detective-sergeant Baker
applied that the accused should be remitted to
Wolvefharopton, arid this the magistrates grahtea.
•
. _

the
last
sent
kee]
how

thal
gra
see]
and