The Philipsburg mail. [volume] (Philipsburg, Mont.) 1887-current, 1893-08-31
INSURANCE. FRAUDS
A Rich and Well Worked
Field For Imposture.
SUICIDE. MURDER AND ARSON
The Life Insurance Companies Are
Up to the Tricks of the Old Swind-
lers, but Occasionally They Get
Causht-SOme Very Notable
Cases - Child Insurance..

A year or two ago the beautiful city
of Terra Haute, Ind, was strangely ex-
cited over a supposed murder, followed
by arson to conceal the first crime
A young man of the city (call him
Jones) of good family connections and far
business standing for one of his age l.;;.
been in the habit of lodging in an old log
cabin l., the lowlands west of the Wabash
during his excursions in the country One
night the cabin was burned CalcineS
bones were found. Evidence was presented
that these might be the bones of the afore
said young man, and so people said; ''P,.o-
Jones What pity!''
people said" so, but the life insurance
companies did not, for they saw on their
books the evidence that 'poor Jones" was
insured for "a very large eamount-altogethe
too large an amount for man with so few
dependent on him. They also had evidence
that "poor Jones" had recently been asso-
ciating with some very suspicious charac-
ters The results need not be detailed-the
reading public is quite familiar with them.
The confession of a "pal' soon brought out
the fact that Jones' was living quietly in
Chicago and that the whole affair was an
ingeniously contrived scheme to swindle
the life insurance companies
OF course the uninstructed mass looked
on this as an entirely unprecedented affair,
and old men shook their heads and once
more got off that old saying which has been
repeated ever since Adam used it to
aggravate Seth, 1.-THE world is getting so
corrupt in these late days" Equally, of
course, the old men were and are wrong.
The tricks on life insurance companies are
as old as the business itself, and little re-
Election will show how they were suggested
by still older tricks in divorce cases-espe-
cially that trick which lawyers call "perso-
nation" The once famous Kansas Indiana
case of Millerton versus Millerton will serve
as an illustration, and the general reader
may find the outlines of it in Richardson's
Beyond the Mississippi"
Millerton left Indiana for Kansas in 1856,
nominally to laid in freedoms cause"
really to get rid of his wife, Some may
say tits all the same" but let that pass.
When affairs in Kansas got settled, his wife
rejoined him. Thereupon he planned
little scheme. Driving down to the river
one day with his wife and family, he con-
vinced them that the water was too high
for safe fording; therefore he would swim
across carrying his summer clothes in a
bunch on his head), get what WAS needed
in Lawrence and swim back. His wife sat
and watched him reach the middle of the
kaw. Then hesuddenly threw up his hands
and sank to rise no more''-that is, he rose
no more to her view
AS a matter of fact, he dived and rose be-
tween two logs on the Lawrence side,
breathed awhile, dived and rose again in {.
drift some rods down stream and thus by
well calculated stages disappeared. The
funeral was we'll attended, and the be-
reaved widow was almost reconciled to her
lot-Women were scarce in Kansas in those
days and therefore in demand-when an old
neighbor arrived from Indiana with the
news that Mil)erton was there in fine health
and disporting himself as a gay widower
Mrs. Millerton hastened to her old home at
once and captured him in the very presence
OF a lady to whom he was engaged. Imag-
ination must supply the details, for "hel
hath no fury like woman scorned."
If this and the like of this were all, we
could afford to laugh, but there is an aw
fully dark side TO the picture. In view of
the abundant evidence it is impossible to
doubt that scores-yea, hundretls-of most
atrocious murders have been committed to
secure life insurance money. And the
heart sickening feature of it is that by the
very nature of the case nearly all these
murders have been done by poison, and
that poison administered by the nearest
relatives-by the husband to the wife, the
wife much oftener to the husband, and,
most horrible of all, by the mother to the
son!
It is but few months since John Sham
Of Princeton, N. j., died under circum-
stances which compelled his physician to
say and the coroner's jury to believe that
ne had been poisoned, and when an inquest
was ordered the authorities were Mortified
10 find that the corpse had been disembow-
eled and stomach and intestines destroyed
BY means unknown. His mother. Mrs.
Matte Sham, is now in prison charged
with both crimes. The young mans life
was insured, his mother being named as
His father had died but few
months before under suspicious circum-
stances, being insured for the benefit of the
widow. The insurance company has paid
The claim in the case of John Sham, but
Mrs. Shaun will be tried on the charge of
murder.
In the winter of 18s9-9O a regular panic
was created in London by publications on
The horrors resulting from child life insur-
ance. The original plan of insuring infants
was most benevolent one, and only the
most suspicious person could have looked
for such evils as actually resulted. By the
payment of mere trife-usually to
cents per week-the parents were insured.
sum varying from $40 to $50 in case of the
child's death, the design being that they
should thus insure money enough to pay
the burial fees and expenses of sickness.
Yet it was proved beyond the possibility of
doubt that hundreds of drunken or brutal
parents deliberately calculated on tht
speedy death of their infants and FASTENED
that death by means which it sickens one
to think of, much more to describe.
OF course these revelations set the Amer
ican authorities to investigating, and twas
found that three companies were doing 81
heavy business in child life insurance.
It was also found, however, that thes&
companies work on an extremely cautious
and conservative system and never insure
where their agents suspect an intention tt