The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-04-14
A GREAT FRAUD.
Mrs. Lillian Hall, of Rockville.
Connecticut,
Preys Upon the Sympathies of People, and
Under the Name of Clementine st. George
Ray, Receives Hundreds of Presents.

| Especial to THE HERALD = Examiner Dispatch J
NEW YORK, April 13.-Away up in the
Connecticut hills, a mile or so from the an
Gent village OF Ellington, and miles away
from the railroad, stands an old implanted
farm house. 1t was here that the ghost of
CIementine st. George Ray found birth in
the brain OF farmers wife, and it was to
this point that a goodly portion of the
United States mail has followed in a steady
stream the past six moths. The old house
is wrapped in chronic somnolence, but in
side there is red checked, blue eyed wo-
man who, for fertility of resource and
pathos of fraudulent wall, is moder Bash
kertseff. Her name is Mrs. Lillian Hall
Mrs. Hall takes every periodical she can
Ind which bears upon the duties of woman
kind, or of house keeping, or of charity
Among the papers to which she subscribes
are the Housewife, The IlUdlid's Visitor and
home Cheer. These were the innocent
things used by Mrs. Hall in her charitable
collections. Some time last fall Mrs. Hall
called upon Editor Taylor, of the Rockville
! Journal, and asked him to solicit through
his paper l,000,0 600 cancelled postage stamps
Tor decrepit and aged woman who wanted
to enter an old ladies' home in New
York. Mrs. Hall claimed that the
1
OF cancelled stamps for 500 and thus Sc
cure entrance to the home. A, month after
! there was an unprecedented rain of postage
stamps in the Rockville postofilce for Mrs.
| Hall. That euterprising woman next Sc
| Iected the Home Cheer as her circulating
medium, and to that paper she sent pa
! thetlc letter detailing the mysteries of an
invalid named Clementine St. George Ray,
| who was said to have fallen violently upon
/ TO lNv mir rin br,,
and compelling the amputation of her leg
at the knee. Instantly the feminine portion
OF the country was IN tears. Express and
mall packages continued to arrive day after
day aud week after week, augmented oc-
caslonally by further letters from Mrs.
Hall. until finally the postmaster laid the
matter before the authorities at Washing
ton, and Inspector Bario, of Meriden, was
detailed to look into it. Inspector Bario
laid the cold, bare facts before United
States Commissioner Marvine of Hartford.
and Thursday last Mrs. Hall was uncere-
monlously arrested. She was conveyed to
Hartford where. after brief hearing, she
was released on $500 bail, her mother be-
coming security. The trial will take place
April Is. There yet remains almost a
bushel of mail at Rockville postoffice adj
dressed to Clementine ST. George Ray. 1t
will be held and returned if possible to
those who mailed it. There is also great
quantity of matter at the express Office.
Postmaster Randall says he has received
over 1000 letters and 500 packages ad-
dressed to Clementine CT. George Ray.
They were delivered to Mrs. Hall at her
request. Mrs Hall said YESTERDAY she had
no statement whatever to make, and that
she hoped the news papers would mind their
own business. Her lawyer, B. H. Bill. OF
Rockville, did not talk as though he were
in love with the case