The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-06-03

for spiritrapping.
An imposture of q more romantic sor:
was recently exposed in one of the Lon
don courts. The perpetrator was an
elderly gentleman, aged seventy-6ve, with
. glossy white hair and trim side-whis.
kers, very noble and patrician air
dressed with the incest precision and with
q courtly manner which almost com.
PEELED respect. He claimed aristocracy
OF birth; and, although he had aliases,
they were high-sounding ones. His name
might be Seymour or it might be Caven-
dish; justice might take its choice. This
progressing parsonage was charged
q with lnveigling foolish young women into
matrimony and swindling them out of
whatever money and jewelry of theirs he
could lay his hands on. Never was q
more remarkable career of imposture
and pretense betrayed in a court of JUS
tice than that of Mr.. Seymour, alas Cav.
endish. He was in truth a very old fox
indeed; but as the English adage has it.,
"The old fox gets fat upon geese, but he
comes to the skinner at last;" and the
venerable swindler of no less than fifty.
six years found limit to his jtourberses
at last within the walls of Dartmoor
prison.
1t transpired that this patrician-look-
ing person was convicted of fraud in
France as long ago as the year 1919,
when Louis XVIII. was reigning, and
but short four years after Waterloo. He
seems to have carried on his operations
indissriminately in all countries for nine
years after he was sentenced to ten years
penal servitude in Brahant. While resid-
ing in Belgium, where he had managed
toprocure the professorship of languages,
in jesuit college. demand for his
extraditiOn came from France, and he
was sentenced to fifteen years more. But
the assurance of the accomplished vii
lain stood him in good stead and, after
being securely lodged in French Jail,
was the Duke of Devonshire, and bribed
woman's attire. HIS principal offenses
seem to have been swindling under high
sounding names, varied by an occasional
marriage, which he effected with charm
ing Indifference to the fact that he was
very much married already. At one
time he gave himself out as son of the
Duke of Wellington; and here and there
he represented himself as the scion of
divers noble families. Twice within the
past five years he has been convicted in
Belgium, once for swindling and once for
defrauding the proprietor of Brussels
hotel by forged letters of credit.
His latest exploit was of a piece
with the rest, only rather more
favored by romance; although, for
the matter of that, his whole career
has been long romance of craft and
crime. 1t sppearsthat one Anne Eliza
beth Pugg advertised, very innocently,
for situation as "a lady's companion"
To this advertisement Mr.. Henry Sey-
mour rendered a quick response. He
was a gentleman, he said, of wealth and
aristocratic family, and was DESTROYS of
engaging housekeeper to preside over
his rural villa in Italy. The confding
Miss Pugg easily swallowed the bait. It
was so much better an offer than she
could have hoped for! She could live in
ease, and on good salary, beneath the
sunny skies and in the balmy breezes of
the fair Southern land! She met Mr..
Seymour, and was delighted with him.
He was so gracious, so patrician! The
old rascal iavished all his arts upon
| the trust1ul young woman; and anon
began to touch upon the tenderest of
subjects. Miss Pugg was comely, and
knew it; after all, Mr.. Seymour had
good taste, and was so delightful, SO
Irresistible an old gentleman! He told
her that he could lay splendid
fortune at her feet, and that, as he
would not probably live long, at his
death she might make marriage with
younger man and have all his wealth to
enjoy with her second spouse. With
Miss Pugg's maiden aunt he was not less
successful. He was prodigal of his
Establishments on this lady, and begged
her to be the trustee of the magnificent
settlement he intended to make upon
her niece. He handed her a package of
papers purporting to be trust-deeds;
they were afterward examined and found
to be bundle of old copies of the Lon
don Times. After a months brief and |
ardent courtship Anne Elizabeth prom
ised blushingly to be his; and soon after
they were married, the happy BRIDE
groom signing himself on the register as
" Richard Henry Conway Seymour"
But poor Miss Pugg's bliss was not
long lasting. In the early days of the
honeymoon the large fortune vanished
into air. Then the bridegroom began to
spend the slender earnings which the
keep for her." He treated her kindly, |
however, and never came home tipsy; and
she still delighted in his erudite and pol
ished conversation. The poor woman |
would, perhaps, have chung to him to
this day had it not been that, one bright |
morning, he was rather earnestly called |
for by the police. He had been at some |
of his old swindling tricks, and was cap
tured before Anne Elizabeth's own eyes |
Then the horrible truth came out that he |
had another wife, and that there were |
some reasons to believe that there was |
an indefinite number Of Mrs. Seymours |
scattered about the globe. At least it |
was proved that he was married at |
Southampton in 1861, to one Alethea |
Thomas, which Alethea was still alive,
mourning her faithless lord.
Such character as this is certainly |
worthy of being called, as Coleridge |
says, "a psychological study" He was
evidently aman OF liberal education and |
fine social accomplishments He had |
clear head and active intellect, capable |
of cunningly combining intricate |
schemes, and carrying them out with cool |
precision and skill. Of the ordinary vices |
Of the adventurous villain he seems to |
have been qaite free. He never ate or |
drank to excess; was not, as far as |
could be learned, an habitue of Baden or |
Monaco, or of any other of the great |
gambling centers; his language was al |
ways scrupulously proper and elegant;
his attire was faultless; his manners
were at once gracious and digniied. He |
seems to have pursued career of con- |
scienceless fracd for period of nearly |
sixty years for the mere cool love Of |
mischief; and, at threescore and fifteen,
found delight in dipping a young woman |
for the sake of the few pounds she had !
been able to collect by hard and honest !
labor. Were he to write, as he could do !
with ability, his adventures during that |
long half-century, what a tale it would |
be!
A not less remarkable parsonage than |
the venerable and seductive Seymour |
was woman who was charged at the |
Surrey Sessions, not long ago, with the |