The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-24
And the Tricks
Of Making
THEM TO ORDER,
The Fate That Befell Davies
ofOld England.

That there are tricks in all trades is
what everybody says about everybody
else, but no one would suppose that the
natural penchant for trickery extended
as far as the manufacture and sale of
spurious ancestry.
At the meeting of the Antiquarian So
ciety that was held here last Friday
Prof. Charming of Harvard told the
following story which he says he saw
in a recent issue of the London Times
that ought to make some of the people
in this country who are anxious to
pay somebody for finding out that their
great-grandfather was a nobleman or
a licensed robber two or three hundred
years ago, rather chary as to whom
they entrust with the contract.
The article in the Times was headed,
Lieut.. Col. Shipway's ancestry" The
officer in question was a member Of the
British army who acquired wealth or
had it thrust upon him, not having
been born that way and who was in
stantly filled with desire to climb his
family tree as soon as he acquired the
golden means of watering it which that
article of vegetation always requires.
He hired a Mr.. Davies, who claimed
to be master of arts in Cambridge
University, and instructed him to look
up his title to ancestral fame, he being
honestly convinced that he was entitled
to it. Mr.. Davies presented a bill that
amounted in our currency to over three
thousand dollars, and with it the graf
flying intelligence that he had dragged
out of the shades of oblivion an an
oestor who might perhaps be a trife
shopwoPn, but was the real article, new
ertheless. This is the way in which
he located the dear departed and
brought him into the light of a postum
nous fame.
He said he had discovered in a par
ish register the fact that one John
Shipway had lived in that place in the
sunny radiance Of public favor in the
18th century. He discovered six en-
tries concerning him. Permission was
secured to search the burying ground,
and this was done. A leaden coffin was
resurrected, and, unfortunate as it
might appear to a preiudiced observer,
it bore a brass plate with the name of
Hicks on it. The antiquarian was an
was an easy task to prove that Hicks
was either mis-spelling of Shipway or
a derivation of it, or else that it was
the work of sleight- of hand perform
er who substituted it after the body
was inferred. Moreover, the words
John Shipman" were found scratched
on the coffin, proving that the rightfuI
owner of the leaden shell had been
evicted by the usurper, Hicks. The
living and easy" Shipway erected an
expensive monument over the eompes-
lite relic of famous mortality, and the
merry game of whose got the ances-
tor?" went on.
Next, the interchangeable Davies found
tablet on the wall of the church in
the parish and some intuition told him
1t had been erected to the memory of
a Shipway. To be sure it purported
TO immortalize one Ahasuerus Hobbs,
but as the relatives of the deceased
Hobbs were not riding any ancestral
hobby, they did not object to its re-
moval, being no doubt Influenced to
that attitude by Mr.. Davies. After re-
moving with pious care a dozen or
more coats of paint, he at last was able
to show the astonished carpers at
Col. Shipway's pretentions, the name Of
the ubiquitous John Shipway IN place
of that of the unfortunate Hobbs, who
was thus scratched off the map for
ever, as the tablet was replaced with
the under one of the twelve coats of
pigment on the outside. Then the hasp
of the box in which the parish records
were kept was found to be lost and
the philanthropic side of Mr.. Davies
nature cropped out at once. He pre-
scented a new hasp to the parish (the
parish did not know anything about the
matter at the time, hoWever,) and one
day it was found that the hasp had
etched on the under side the initials
y. S." conclusively proving that the
deceased, Shipway was a boxer and OF
the elite in consequence, He also had
carved his name on the interior of the
belfry of the church, as 1t took the mod
ern development of the camera and the
ingenuity of Mr.. Davies to lay bare
And then the time had come to storm
the office of the college of feralds and
secure a coat of arms for his patient,
who was suffering from acute ances-
terology. The heralds had an assort-
ment of arms for all sorts OF occas>
ions and people, but they eouldn seem
to find anything that fitted an unknown
Shipway that resided in another mans
lead coffin with the other fellows door
plate on it. They went back four CEN
turtles, but nothing fitting the case was
to be found. They advised that Mr..
Davies look in the diocesan records.
He did so. and was rewarded with his
usual good fortune. He seems to have
been a very lucky fellow all along, un-
til the last of the affair, when he had
a slight reverse, but that was nothing
to speak Of.
The diocesan records produced a will
of John 6hipway and also that of his
father and both bore the coat of arms
given the family by Richard III. 1t was
found, however, that will numbered
rs was missing from the records of the
parish. After a time, 1t returned, and
then people heard Of the latest Shipway
discovery, for the Shipway will was
number IS. But Shipway was not the
name on will rs, as given by the lists,
and natural spirit of investigation
took hold of some one.
Then the matter came out, and the
one false step that shed reflected light
on all the devious ways of Davies, was
illumined. He had omitted to change
the name Of the parish on the corner
of the parchment, for of course he had
forged the Shipway will on the paper
of number IS. and it appeared that
Shipway had made his will in "A parish
in which he never lived. And so the
spurious Davies wendell his sad way
to jail for conspiracy to defraud, and
Lieut.. Col Shipway returned to the
ranks Of the many mediocre.
HIS SUPERSTITION.