The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-06 00:00:00

POLICE 12V TELLIGENCE.-April 5

GUILDHALL.—Elizabeth Smith, a woman of
about 40 years of age, who represented that she
was living with a cab proprietor named Gilbert,
and a foreigner whose real name is Edward Segers,
but who appears to have been trading for nefarious
purposes under the name of Segers and Co., Reii
and Co., and other aliases, were charged with con-
spiring together, and with other persons not yet in
custody, to obtain goods by means of false pre
tences to a very considerable amount, with intent
to cheat and defraud a number of foreign firms in
almost every branch of trade and manufactures.
Mr. Laxton, barrister-at-law, conducted the pro-
secution, and Mr. Wavell, inspector of Stubbs'.4
tirade Protection Society, a tended to wa*ch the
case on behalf of various French and English com•
mercial firms, who, it was stated, bad been vic-
timized by the prisoner Segers and his gang to
the extent of about £20,000.
Mr. Laxton said he did not propose to offer any
further evidence against the female prisoner at
present, and be thought it not unlikely but that he
should have on a future occasion to ask for her dis-
charge, as Mr. Cozzi, the prosecutor, was of opinion
that she was only a tool in the hands of Segers and
others; and, although she might have been cog.
nizant to some extent of the frauds which were being
perpetrated by them, it might be more conducive to
the interests of justice that the charge should not
be pressed against her. He therefore proposed to
allow the case to stand over, particularly as it
would be necessary to produce witnesses and d cu.
mentary testimrny from Paris to complete the
evidence against *S‘-gert;, and in the meantime he
would outer upon one of many other charges, for
obtaining another case of straw hats, value £ll6,
of M. Peter Tory-Cadet, a straw-bonnet manufac-
turer, of Nice, in France; and on the next exami-
nation he would open a third charge against
Segers, of obtaining a quantity of wino, value £5OO.
of Mr. Bernstein, of Hamburg, under false and
fraudulent pit tEnces.
Mr. John Ulric am an. import( r of
foreign .goods, and carry on lau-,ine,a at 2, Hart
street, Wood ..treet, I am the London correspon•
dent to Mr. P. Tory-Cadet, of Nice. I produce a
letter which X r,ctived from hi:, firm bout a month
ago.

Ignetiue Poflaky said---I am eequeinted with the
handwriting of the prisoner Segers, I have known
him by that name for the last 18 months. He for-
merly had an office at 38, St. Mary Axe, where he
carried on business under the name of Edward
Segers and Co, as general merchants and importers,
but I never saw any signs of business going on upon
any of the occasions that I have been thi,re. Shoe)
then 1 received a from him ad d reeees
from Lime-street, file letter produced by the last
witness, dated the 28th of January, is in the hand-
writing of the prisoner Segers, and the tint port of
it is that he was in the receipt of a letter from M. P.
Tory-Cadet, dated the 24th of Jan., and considered
the prices for certain goods named were too high,
but that if M. Tory-Cettlet would accept the terms
he (Segers) proposed, subject to adiscount of 10 per
cent., he would tale a quantity equal to the value of
£ll6. The letter also urged expedition is the exe-
cution of the order, as trade was too dull to admit,
of doing a brilliant business, and that any unneces-
sary delay in forwarding the goods might lose him
a good market. The letter produced dated the 9th
of Feb. is in English, and in the prisoner Segers's
handwriting; it is the order for the delivery of the
goods by Messrs Horne and Co., of Moorgate street,
to Charles Reil and Co.'s agent. I believe that
since Segers has been in London he has obtained
goods of various foreign houses to tae amount of
not less than ,20,000 ; and had it not been for the
information and assistance derived from Stubb's
Trade Protection Institution, the prisoner Segers
would not have been arrested, as he was, for claims
amounting to nearly £l,OOO, and consequently
would not have been furthcomieg to answer the
criminal charges which are. about to be proved
against him.
Mr. Horace Horne said—The order of the 9th of
Feb. was presented at our office in Moorgate-street
on the same day. It was an order for the delivery
of a case of straw hats, marked "P. T. 72," which
had been previously consigned to us, and it was ad-
dressed to " Charles Reil and Co."
Charles Harper, porter to a Mr. Steer, proved that
he obtained the goods on the order produced, which
he received from his employer.
Mr. H. Steer said,--I am a lece manufacturer and.
commission agent, carrying on business at 64 and
65, Breachstreet, Cho ipside. About the 9i o or loch
of February last I received three samples 01 straw
hats from Mr. Leopard, of 9, Walbrook, a person
with whom I am in the habit of dealing largely.
He wished me, as he frequently does in other mat-
ters, to ascertain what they were worth. I there
fore took them to all the leading houses in the
trade, but as the quality varied I told Mr. Leopard
that I must see the bulk, and afterwards went with
him in a cab to Whitecrose street Pinson, where we
saw the prisoner Segers. They spoke together for
some time in a foreign language which I did not
understand, and Segars then gave Mr. Leopard an
order the delivery of the goods, which the latter
gave me on leaving the prison. I think I heard the
prisoner S 5 rhe was a member of the firm of Charles
Reil and Co., but I know it was said in his presence,
at all events. I told them I knew nothing about
the value of such goods, but I would try and ascer-
tain it. Mr. Leopard, before leaving, give Segers
two sovereigns, and Segers told me that he wanted
to part with the goods to enatee him to get out of
prison. The else contained 60 straw bonnets, and
I agreed to give £23 4s, for them.
Sir F. G. Moon—Did it not strike you as some-
what extraordinary that he should be soiling 1:116
worth of goods for £23 4s.
Mr. Steer—Not at all, sir ; for I had offered them
to the whole of the trade, and only three houses
were inclined to buy them. As soon as I received
the goods I went. to Whitceross•street Prison end
paid Segers. ihr • them, deducting the £2 Mr. Leo-
pard had given him I advanced him £1 and £1 4s.
for carriee's charges, &c. I actually gave £25 17s.
for the goods, as I had to pay Mr. Leopard 13. e.
for hie commieeion.
Sir F. G. Moon—Did you buy these goods on
commission or upon your own account ?
Mr. Steer—Upon my own account, sir, and I sold
theta again' at a profit of £3• 3s. Segers gave me
a reetipt, in the name of Charles Reil and Co. Mr.
Leopard is a general merchant. The straw hats
produced by Mr. Goodyear, of St. Paul's-church-
yard, are the same I sold to him for £29.
Mr. Frederick Goodyear, straw hat warehouse-
man, and wholesale milliner, of Watling-street and
St. Paul's-churchyard, said—l bmight the straw
bonnets produced. They are called capotes. There
are only 50 left, the remainder having been made
up into bonnets, in which shape they have been
sold, or are still in stock.
Sir F. G. Moon--e Did you know that the whole-
sale trade value of them was £ll6 when you bought
them for £29 ?
Mr. Goodyear--Certainly not, sir. I did not see
the original invoice, and as they are not a market-
able article, I gave as much as they were worth.
John Nye, the landlord of the house, 12, St. An-
drew's-road, proved that letters and parcels fre-
quently arrived for Charles Reil and Co., but no
person of that name lived there, and the prisoner
Segers never carried on business there of any kind.
Th prisoner Smith lived there and used to take all
letters to Segers in prison, but the parcels were
sent away, there being no money to pay the car-
riage.
Bull, the officer. said he had succeeded in stop-
ping another parcel of goods, which were now at
the Bricklayers' Arms Railway station, and some
idea might be formed of the value of them from the
fact that the conveyance charges upon tiler
amounted to £l5, and from inquiries he had ma e,
he had ascertained that since Segers had been in
prison he had obtained between £4,000 and £5,000
worth of goods of different kinds, consisting of
iron safes, charcoal, straw bonnets, champagne,
&c.—in fact nothing seemed to have come amiss to
him.
Mr. Wavell, from Stubb's Trade Protection-
office, stated that within the last six weeks
they had received no less than 25 or 30 applica-
tions from bankers, merchants, and general commer-
cial firms in Paris and from all parts of the Conti-
nent for information with regard to the prisoner
Segers. Some of these E ppl lea ti ons were front per-
sons who had already been victimised. to a very
serious extent, and others from persons who were
about to forward large quantities of valuable goods
upon the orders of Charles Reil and Co., and who,
by a timely warning of the character of the fictitious
firm, were saved from heavy losses.
Sir F. G. Moon said there was no doubt that this
was only
the (Telling of a most extensive con-
spiracy, and he trusted the press, with their usual
rourtev, would render all the assistance in their
power in furthering the ends of justice, by giving
the utmost publicity possible to the case. The
magistrates were at all times glad to acknowledge
services offered in support of the public good, and
he, for one, was pleased that he had the opportunity
of doing so in the present. case. He alluded to
Stubbs' s Trade Protection Institution, through
whose instrumentality one of the most dangerous
eangs of swindlers was about to be broken up, and
he thou.ght the commercial world were greatly in-
debted to the gentlemen connected with that esta-
blishment for the valuable aid and information they
had afforded in this matter.
The prisoner Segers said he had sent to instruct
counsel to appear for him, but he gentleman he
wished to engage was out of town, and in his
absence he would abstain from cross-examining