The Potteries Examiner : — 1872-11-02 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

SAD CASE. Henry Alexander Gnazzarnoi, oiias Henry Court, I alias Elisabeth C. Pugh, olieoo Clara E. Pugh, a man 50 years of age, was charged on remand at Westminster Police-court with endeavouring to obtain a , charitable contribution by means of false pretences I from Mr. Henry Morgan Vane, Secretary to the Charity Commission, and he was also, charged with attempting to defraud Mr. Robert Cook, another gentleman connected with that commission. Mr. George Lewis, jun., appeared on behalf of the Charity Organisation Society, to prosecute; and Mr. W. D. Smyth, of Rochester-row, appeared to watch the case on behalf of Mr. Pugh, the gentleman whom the prisoner had represented to be dead. The facts of the cage were of a very peculiar' character. Tho prisoner was the son of the Italian tutor to her present Majesty, and he was also the reader " to the Princess Sophia in her blindness. He appears ' to have been possessed of considerable literary 'talent, which he had however devoted to the worst purposes. He was a clerk in the Ecclesiastical Commission, and afterwards in the Census, office, but he lost both those appointments by misconduct, and at length descended , to the most artful devices and herring-letter impositions. Imitating the handwriting of a lady, he wrote two letters to Mr. Vane, and delivered them at his residenee, 74, Eaton.square. They purported to be written by Mrs. Clare E. Pugh, widow of Ur. Oliver Vaughan Pugh, a solicitor, and registrar of the County Court at Llanfyllin, Wales, and after apologising for the great liberty of addressing Mr. Vane, went on to recount the dire distress of tho widow and orphans, describing them without even food or shelter. Names of various gentlemen connected with the office were mentioned, and Mr. Vane VIM anxious to see what (multi be done in the matter, as Mr. Pugh was an old and valued friend of his, and had been with him at the offioe of the Charity Commission. He accordingly made inquiries at the offiee, but found that Mr. Pugh was alive and well, and that the letters were forgeries, and when the prisoner celled for the donation on behalf of the widow, he was given into oustody. The second letter was merely a repetition of the first, . .  Mr. Arthur Charles Teller, clerk in the Charity Commission, proved that he raw Mr. Pugh alive and well on Friday last. He had known him some pan. Mr. Robert Cook, of Argyll-street, Regent-street, said he was with the prier or at the Ecclesiastical Commission some years ago. Be knew the hand. writing of the prisoner. The letters produced were in his handwriting. The letters produced were beautiful spesimens of female oaligraphy. Mr. John Goodenough ilayter, a clerk in the Charity Commission, pro,l that a rimilar attempt at fraud had been made upon him but without effect; the letter was in t'ue same handwriting as the others, and to the sem.. purpose. Prisoner said nothing, but buried his face in his hands. •  Mr. Woolrych said he fplt a painful duty in having to pass sentence upon a mau whose future, had it been devoted to better u-es, would have been no doubt one of the brightest. Well born, well educated, and well traine be had made use of those qualifloations to attempt these wretched impositions, stealing the hearts of the charitable against the really needy and deserving, and musing discomfort and anxiety to the gentleman the report of whose death he had circulated; it was a sad case, and he had lietened to the appeal to werey, but had the prisoner gone before a jury his punishment would probably have been more severe than the sentence he was about to pass, vie., six months' imprisonment with hard labour, being three months for each attempt at obtaining money. Prisoner was then led away from the desk.  MURDERS Ow