Weekly News. — 1892-04-07 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

ALLEGED MURDERS AND FRAUDS IN SOUTH AFRICA.  The superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department in Victoria is stated to have received a report from Detective Brant, who has recently joined the Victorian Police Force after lengthened service in South Africa, which tends to implicate Deeming in a fresh series of crimes in the latter colony. According to Detective Brant's report, that officer knew Deeming at the Cape, and is positive that he was guilty of three murders during his residence at Johannesburg in 1888. He was also concerned in a swindle which was perpetrated on the National Bank at Johannesburg for £162,000.  On being interviewed, Detective Brant explained that the fraud on the National Bank at Johannesburg was perpetrated by means of bills floated on valueless security. Deeming's share hi the plunder would. he calculated, amount to about £30,000. According to Brant's account, Graham, the man murdered at Johannesburg,was in depressed circumstances, and was employed as a billiard-marker. Deeming quarrelled with him in the billiard-room, and, according to the common supposition, subsequently waylaid and murdered him in cold blood. The two natives who were Graham's fellow-victims were, it is believed, accidental witnesses of the crime, and were themselves murdered by Deeming in order to prevent their giving evidence against him. Detective Brant was not employed to investigate the case until six weeks after the murders had been committed. In the meantime Deeming decamped with Auspitz,his accomplice in the bank fraud. The detective traced the pair to Quilimane, on the east coast of Africa. The Consul there informed Brant, who followed in their tracks, that two men had recently visited the place professing to have come last from the Zambesi. It was subsequently reported that Carl Auspitz had died on the road after leaving Quilimane; but Brant, being suspicious of the truth of the tale, had the man's supposed grave opened, and found that it contained, not Auspitz's, but a negro's corpse. It was ultimately ascertained that Auspitz had escaped to India, and Deeming was afterwards reported to have died. Mr. Alfred Barford,who is now in Melbourne,was a member of the Alexandra Theatre Company in Johannesburg at the time when Graham and the two natives were murdered in the mining camp. He relates that one evening just previously a farewell supper was given to Deeming, Carl Auspitz, and several others, who were on the point of leaving for England for the purpose of floating the Great Kruger Gold Mining Company on the London market. The supper was given on the stage of the theatre after the performance of the piece then running. During the course of the festivities Deeming sang a song in the Lancashire dialect. A day or two afterwards the murders were committed, and Auspitz and Deeming left the locality by different routes. Auspitz went to Delagoa Bay, where he tried to destroy all traces of his existence by having a negro's body buried in his own name. Deeming went to Durban and resorted to exactly the same dodge. In proof of the fact a tombstone is still to be seen there purporting to be erected to the memory of Frederick Bayley Deeming. Both men subsequently proceeded to London and endeavoured to float the Great Kruger Company. They managed to sell the property for £110,000; but the brokers through whom the transaction was being effected discovered the swindle just in time and retuined the deposit money to the intending purchasers. DID DEEMING LIVE IN SOUTH LONDON?  It is stated that some persons in South London, having noticed Deeming's portrait as given in an illustrated paper, affirm that if this be a faithful likeness they are ready to identify the original as a man who lodged with them in 1888. Before coming to them this man appears to have hastily quitted a house which he occupied, and to have disposed of his furniture. Moreover, a wife and housekeeper seem just then to have mysteriously disappeared. Further, the man seems to have worked at electric machinery, or the like, in a workshop with a cemented floor.