Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
By Bidwell, Austin
Classic work by Bidwell, Austin.
Table of Contents
Brooklyn Public Schools in the Sixties--Old. No. 13--Parents Suited to the Golden Age--A Curious Preparation for the Battle of Life--Knew that Brutus Slew Caesar--George the Th...
In a Broker's Office--A Nice Old Gentleman--Situation in Wall Street--An Up-to-Date Young Man--Visions of Wealth--Speculations--Wall Street in the Sixties--The Hon. John Morris...
Pleasure Before Business--Result of That Method--On Financial Rocks--James, Otherwise "Jimmy," Irving--He Was a Model Chief of Detectives--Police Headquarters, 300 Mulberry Str...
History of the Famous Lord Bond Steal--"On the Office"--Three Sneaks Stumble on a Fortune--A $1,250,000 Tin Box--Dazed Crooks--What to Do with Their White Elephant--Excitement ...
Police Protectors--New York Gangs--Irving & Co. Give Me $80,000 Lord Bonds to Sell Abroad--A Midnight Farewell--Alone on the Sea--When Jim Fisk Owned Our Judges--Chief Irving ...
The Bank Looted--Irving Notified by Bank Officials--His Feigned Surprise--Hunts the Burglars, but Divides the Plunder at His Own House--Count Shinburne and His Palace on the Rh...
I Arrive in Paris--Field of Waterloo--Meet the Antwerp Chief of Police--He Is on Trail--A Dutch Van Tromp and the Countess Winzerode--His Dream of Bliss and Tragic Death--My Ne...
Marpurgo & Weisweller, Bankers--Francoise Blanc, the Gambler King--His Casinos at Monte Carlo, Homburg and Wiesbaden--I Meet Van Tromp's Countess--Outlived Her Beauty--Now a ...
I Sell the $80,000 Bonds--Reach London Safely--Drifting--Success in Crime a Failure--A Desolate Woman--Beautiful Barmaid Show--Westminster Abbey--Good Resolutions--Sail Home--I...
Edwin James, Q.C., and a Possible Lord Chancellor of England--His Extravagance--On the Border Land of Crime--He Oversteps--Disbarred--Comes to New York--Richard O'Gorman's Gr...
Eastward Ho!--The James and Brea Exit--Ezra, the Shrewd Lawyer--Three Unhappy Daughters--He Marries One--Detects Forged Will--Flight of Brea to Montana--A Sunrise Surprise at...
Bordeaux, Marseilles and Lyons "Donate" $50,000--A Bad Quarter of an Hour--Eggs and Peasant Women--"Sweets to the Sweet"--A Mysterious Stranger Disappears Among the Tombs. ...
A Starry Talk--Contrast Between Mac's Philosophy and His Errand--A Financial Trip Through Germany--From Leipsic Fair to London--Return Loaded with Thalers. ...
A Drive to Hampton Court--Send $10,000 Police Tribute to New York--Discussing the Bank of England in the Throne Room at Windsor Castle--Believe It to Be a Fossil Institution--G...
Voyage to Rio Janeiro--The Lady of the Lucitania--A Swedish Colonel's Party of English Engineers--A Bibulous Chaplain--Modern Buccaneers--Scenes at Bordeaux--Crossing the Line-...
Fifty Thousand Dollars on Bogus Letters of Credit--Visit to a Coffee Plantation--Slaves Dining--Dangerous Errors in Letters of Credit--A Nervous Day--An Eagle-Eyed Hebrew--"Sho...
Brazilian Law--Visit Police Headquarters--A Douceur to the Chief--In a Tight Spot--A "Doctored" Passport--A Detective on Trail. Who Ingratiates Himself into Mac's Confidence--M...
Rio to Buenos Ayres--Return and Meet Mac in Paris--Determine to Abandon a Dangerous Business--Vienna--Watching the Game--Must Have More Money--Good Resolutions Vanish--Return ...
Bank of England Requires No References--Letter from Paris--A Gilded American Young Man--Duped into Marriage with a Parisienne Moendaine--A Ghost at Monte Carlo--In a Greenwood ...
A Council of War--Description of Bills of Exchange--Frederick Albert Warren, the Great American Railway Contractor--The Great Bank Proves Fallible--Discounts Bogus Bills of Exc...
Draw Fabulous Sums--Bags of Sovereigns by the Cab Load--In a French Railway Wreck--Baron Alfonse de Rothschild, Head of the Paris House--A Famous L6,000 Draft. ...
Last Call at the Bank of England--Noyes Arrives in London--An Artful Plot--Introduce Noyes--Plan Now Complete--Our Wise Forefathers--No Change in a Century--Our Paper Is Discou...
Fifty Thousand Dollars a Day--The Golden Shower Continues to Fall--Operations Shrouded in Midnight Darkness--No Possibility of Discovery--Finish and Begin Again--Amazing Oversi...
Consternation--A Mob of Bankers--The Financial World Shaken--Noyes Taken to Newgate--Mac Cables Irving--His Flight to France--Sails from Havre on Board Thuringia--Arrested at ...
Hunted Through Ireland--$2,500 Reward for My Capture--Detectives "Spot" Me at the Cork Railway Station--Obliged to Abandon Taking Passage by the Ill-Fated Atlantic--A Game of...
An Unceremonious Call--"I am a Fenian Leader"--A "Story" Told in the Dark--Maloy Helps My Escape on an Irish Jaunting Car--Eggs--A Policeman Anxious to Obtain the Five Hundred ...
A Marriage at the American Embassy in Paris--Anxious Moments at Versailles--Off for Spain--Crossing the Pyrenees--Gunshots--Train off the Track--Captured by Carlist Bandits--Re...
A Carlist Officer--A Picturesque Caravan--Arrival at Burgos--Startling Telegrams--Revolution at Madrid--The Railway Seized--My Party in a Trap--Madrid Cathedral and a Bull Fi...
Arrival in Santander--Gloomy Forebodings--Sail for Cuba--Watch the Pyrenees Sink in the Sea--Two Sisters of Charity, Innocents on a Voyage--Circus at St. Thomas--Sunset Gun in ...
Slavery in Cuba--Life in Havana--The Million-Pound Forgery Discovered--My Opinion Asked--Trip to the Isle of Pines--The Cuban Rebels--A Battle Field--A Slave Cook--The Missiona...
On the Caribbean--A Motley Cargo--Turning Turtles and Shark Fishing--A Dinner Party in Havana Proves a Surprise Party--Capt. John Curtin of the Pinkertons Appears on the Scene-...
Friendly Spanish Officials--Plots to Escape--Leap for Liberty--Escape out of Havana--Travel the Beach Nights--Refuge in the Jungle Days--Construct a Raft--Food and Water Gone, ...
Creeping Across a Bridge--Sentries Discover Me--They Challenge: "Quien Va?"--They Fire--Flight and Escape on the Raft--A Tropical Night Swim--Sharks Everywhere--Knife Between M...
Back in Havana--Curtin's Story--Extradited--Spain Delivers Me to England--Pinkertons Escort Me on Board Steamer--Arrival at Plymouth--Newgate at Last--When Time is Old and Ha...
Life in Newgate--Legal Sharks--A Pattern Solicitor--A Lame Defense --Before Lord Mayor Waterlow--Trial at the Old Bailey--Thronging Crowds--Days of Mental Torture--Jury Retires...
A Modern Jeffreys--Penal Servitude for Life--End of the Primrose Way--A Resolve--Will Fortune Ever Smile Again?--Newgate to Chatham Prison--A Cocky Little Major--You Were Sent ...
Events of the First Day--Hopeless Outlook--Lack of Mental and Physical Food--A Shakespeare Won and Hope Dawns--In the Infirmary--Effects of Prolonged Imprisonment. ...
Prison Management--Warders Under Military Discipline--Their Long Hours and Small Pay--Their Character and Antecedents--English Prison System Not Reformatory--Turns Out Murderer...
A Genius--Strange Story of Arthur Heep--Unwise Parents--Driven from Home--Temptation and Fall--In a Lunatic Asylum--Escapes Naked in a Storm--Clothes Secured from a Scarecrow--...
English Prisons Schools for Crime--Two Prison Aid Societies--United States Laws Evaded--Snug Berths for Reverend Barnacles--Contributions Go for Salaries--No Benefit to ex-Pris...
Rev. Mr. Whiteley--How to Stop Influx of Foreign Criminals--Foster an Example--Whiteley, Secretary of Aid Society, Sends Foster to Sea--His Arrival in Chicago--Meets an Old Pri...
A Gettysburg Veteran--In the Wethersfield, Ct., State Prison--Makes and Conceals a Set of Burglar's Tools--Liberated--Returns and Burglarizes the Prison--Boat Load of Plunder--...
The Fenians at Chatham--Dr. Gallagher--McCarty, O'Brien and Others--We Become Friends--Excavating the Chatham Ship Basin--Starvation and Despair--Self-Mutilation of an Arm or ...
Fenian Prisoners in English Prisons--McCarthy, O'Brien--A Plan Miscarried--In the Tolls--Severe Punishments--Curtin, Daly, Egan--Poor Dr. Gallagher. ...
A Dictionary and Life of the Prophet Jeremiah vs. a Shakespeare--Prison Hospital Proves a Paradise--Nature's Compensations--Reality Not So Terrible as Imagined--Human Nature Un...
Public Opinion Within Says the Same as Outside--A Sensible Fellow--Pluck Wins--Roses Scarce, Thorns Plenty--Woe to Mutineers for "More Bread"--Sentiment Banished--Resistance ...
Hard Lines--A Boaster--A Veneered Flunkey--Billy Treacle's Aunt Dies Again--Frederic Barton and His Vain Petitions--I Give Him a Pointer--His Inherited Fortune Fake--Surreptiti...
Sixteen-Thousand-Acre Tea Plantation in India and Sixty Thousand Pounds Imaginary Inheritance--Barton Becomes a Great Man--The Plot Thickens--Letters from London--Smith Dischar...
Tantalizing the Home Secretary--Refused a Letter Sheet--Petition the Home Office for One--Sarcasm About Barton's Release on My Sub-Rosa Petition--Good Conduct Fails--Feigned We...
Niblo Clark--The Mysterious Three R's--His Characteristic Verses--My Tenth Anniversary at Chatham--All Efforts Fail and Fifteen Years Gone Forever--Despairing When Good News ...
HAD THERE BEEN WISDOM THERE? We lived in South Brooklyn, near to old No. 13, the Degraw Street Public School. To that I was sent, and there got all the education I was ever fated ...
"'TWAS EVER THUS." OF COURSE IT WAS. The situation my father had obtained for me was with a sugar broker by the name of Waterbury. He was a partner in a large refinery, his office...
A LICENSED PIRATE. We had latterly somewhat neglected business--our real business being at night, when we made the pursuit of pleasure hard work. Soon the finances of our firm not...
FOOLS STUMBLING ON FORTUNES. The present generation has become tolerably familiar with defalcations and robberies involving enormous sums. Previous to 1861 they were comparatively...
WHEN BOSS TWEED WAS NEW YORK'S OWNER AND JIM FISK, PROPRIETOR OF OUR JUDGES. What a look of relief and triumph swept over the faces of Irving, Stanley and White when I gave my con...
CHEATED VISIONS AND VANISHED HOPES. Saturday night was the time chosen to get into the bank, and the plunderers were to remain there until Sunday. The members of Irving's ring wer...
GILDED SIRS WHO ARE NOT WISE. After a pleasant voyage the Russia arrived, and one May morning I walked into the Northwestern Railway station in Liverpool to take the train for Lon...
THE MERRY SUMMER OVER AND NO HARVEST STORED. From Cologne to Frankfort is about 140 miles, and swiftly our train sped along up the Rhine--the lovely stream about which poets have ...
"WE HAVE ANOTHER JOB FOR YOU." About every second day I called on Murpurgo & Weissweller in Frankfort, and talked over matters, and easily saw that everything would go right. All ...
A NINETEENTH CENTURY PRODIGAL. Let no man who may be tempted to commit a crime ever fancy that if he takes the first step down hill he will stop until he reaches the bottom. If on...
"CRACK THE LAWYER'S VOICE THAT HE MAY NEVER MORE FALSE TITLES PLEAD, NOR SOUND HIS QUILLETS SHRILLY." The Eastward Ho was a hint of a project we had frequently talked over as a po...
RESTEZ ICI, MES ENFANTS. We all landed in Liverpool in the highest spirits, and at once took the train for London, enjoying the novelty of everything. It was settled that George ...
WE TALK OF THE STARS AND DO THE OTHER THING. After we saw George off to Paris on the train Mac and I walked up and down the platform outside of the station, star-gazing. Mac, with...
I PLAY THE SILVER KING. The next morning we all drove to Hampton Court, the creation of Wolsey, and when tired we went to the Star and Garter. There we talked over matters, and ca...
PIRATICAL CRUISE IN TROPICAL SEAS. The way to the bank vaults with their treasures had been laid open, but there remained many matters of detail to be carried out before we could ...
"SHOW ME YOUR LETTERS OF CREDIT." Fate, Providence, call it what you will, seldom fails to upset wrongdoing, making it rocky for the wrongdoer. By an irony of fortune we carried ...
ONCE MORE WE SAIL THE SEAS OVER. Here in our country we know nothing of the annoyances and humbuggery of the passport system, but now, as in 1872, every person desiring to leave B...
LITTLE FISHES WRIGGLING THROUGH GREEN WAVES. Once more together and our adventures since we separated related, the question arose: What next? We determined to abandon our dangero...
WITH NO REGRETS, WITH NO TORTURING REMORSE. Although I had the very respectable balance of $67,000 at the bank, I had not as yet, since my arrival in London, paid it a visit. This...
DETAILS NECESSARY, IF TEDIOUS. After the events narrated in the last chapter, I returned to London. I arrived early in the morning, and, meeting my companions, we had a long and a...
THE EGYPTIANS PASS OVER THE RED SEA AND THE HEBREWS ARE DROWNED THEREIN. All the details of events leading through the long Summer and Autumn days of 1872 up to the hour when the ...
"ACCEPTED. LIONEL ROTHSCHILD." When George and Mac received my telegram they, knowing the difficulties of my mission, deemed it incredible that I had succeeded within a day, so wh...
SHOWERS OF GOLD FALL--AND THEN? I shall try and condense into a single chapter the narrative of events in London from the time of my departure until the day, some months later, wh...
POINTS FOR JUSTICE TO PICK UP. Mac and George were without, and were stricken with consternation, for a minute's observation of the gathering crowd and the rushing into the bank o...
THE IRONY OF FATE. In this chapter I give in his own words George's account of his flight from London and his arrest. "Without the remotest suspicion that my right name was known...
"EXCUSE ME, SIR, FOR QUESTIONING YOU." "Crossing the narrow street in Cahir, referred to at the close of the last chapter, I went in haphazard at the first door, without knocking,...
THE FLOWERS IN THE PRIMROSE WAY ARE SWEET. As narrated in an earlier chapter, I left England two days before the first lot of forged bills were sent in. I left serene and confiden...
FEAR SAYS "NO" TO HAPPINESS. We passed during the day a military post and several squads of armed men. Poor fellows! they were wretchedly equipped, so far as garments went. They a...
I WATCH THE PYRENEES SINK IN THE SEA, THEN SAIL O'ER GREEN NEPTUNE'S BACK. It was 11 o'clock when we started. The streets were thronged, and the throngs moving in one direction. T...
"HAPPINESS AND I SHAKE HANDS FOR A TIME." Cuba! What a productive and fertile island it is, with its charming climate and lovely scenery! But, as in so many of the green spots of ...
THE PHILISTINES ARE UPON THEE, SAMSON. I was very fortunate in my servant Nunn, he being devoted to me, a resolute fellow as well, and thoroughly trustworthy. He felt very badly o...
NIGHTLY IN MY DUNGEON THE MAGICIAN MEMORY WOULD UNROLL THAT SCENE. So at last justice had laid hold of me, but I thought it a very shaky hold--so much so that I was confident that...
SHARKS, SALT WATER ONES, AND OTHER THINGS. The bridge had no protection along the side save a simple stringpiece of timber. On the far side the houses rested nearly against the br...
ONE LOVELY JUNE MORNING INTO PLYMOUTH HARBOR WE SAIL. Ten days after the events recorded in the last chapter I sailed once more into Havana. This time a prisoner. Two days after m...
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. My life at Newgate was an ordeal such as I hope no reader of this will ever undergo. Day by day I saw the world slipping from under my feet, and the net draw...
"NOTHING LEFT US BUT A GRAVE, THAT SMALL MODEL OF THE BARREN EARTH," WITH DISHONOR FOR AN EPITAPH. Judge Archibald proceeded to pass sentence. He began with the interesting and tr...
HENCEFORTH A LIGHT WAS TO STREAM THROUGH THE FLUTED GLASS OF MY WINDOW. The first day was over, but it seemed to me that something more must come. That what I had gone through cou...
WHAT, THESE TEDIOUS DETAILS AGAIN. It will be well to present here some account of those who were to rule my life for so many years. The Board of Prison Commissioners have their ...
THE DAYS O' SUMMER MERRILY SPENT IN THE LAND OF THE HEATHER. In the cell next to mine was a prison genius named Heep, who was one of the most singular characters I ever met. As I ...
WE WILL FERRY YOU OVER JORDAN THAT ROLLS BETWEEN. Once convicted of a crime in England it is impossible, unless a man has money or friends, for him to obtain an honest livelihood ...
"WELL MY MAN, WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO?" "I WANT TO GO TO AMERICA, SIR." "TUT! TUT! YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO GO TO SEA!" "YES, SIR; I WANT TO GO TO SEA." The Royal Society and The Chr...
MANY A MAN MORE DANGEROUS WRITES ALDERMAN AFTER HIS NAME. Foster's experience during his four years' residence in Chicago was decidedly novel, and it had evidently brightened his ...
A BATTERED HULK STRANDED ON A SHORE TO WHICH NO TIDE RETURNS. I am glad to say that during the almost lifetime I passed at Chatham there were only a scant half dozen Americans who...
I FIND THE FENIANS WITH ME IN THE TOILS. I had, of course, for many years heard much of the Fenian prisoners in the English prisons, particularly Sergeant McCarty and William O'Br...
IN MOOD AS LONELY, IN PLIGHT AS DESPERATE AS HIS. I have related how, the Sunday after my sentence, in my despair I took the little Bible off the shelf. The other books I had at C...
leaves what look like two artificial props to support the head. As time wears on the erect posture grows bent; instead of standing up straight the knees bulge outward as though una...
IF PAIN IS NOT AN EVIL, IT CERTAINLY IS A VERY GOOD IMITATION. The world inside of the walls has a public opinion of its own, and it is at least quite as often just as the public ...
HIS ROW BECOMES FILLED WITH VERY SHARP-EDGED STONES INDEED. The inhabitant of a cell has a very rough row to hoe under any circumstance, and it has to be hoed, but there is no nec...
HE TELEGRAPHED THE NEWS TO MY WARDER, AND BARTON WENT ON HIS WAY REJOICING. My warder friend supplied me with writing materials. I prepared one letter, which I had him copy, and a...
I FLUSTER THE GREAT JUPITER OF MY LITTLE WORLD. The successful issue of this little enterprise gave me great satisfaction. There was, of course, nothing in it for me, nor did I wa...
IT WAS NIGHT; SILENCE AND GLOOM HAD SETTLED DOWN ON THE INMATES. By a refinement of cruelty we had been separated and sent to prison wide apart; for twenty years I had not seen th...