Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 18

In the _Annual Register_ for 1856, November 14th, we read, "Another fraud connected with the transfer of shares and stock, but on a far grander scale, and by a much more pretentious criminal, has been discovered.

"Of late some strange discrepancies had been observed in the accounts of the Great-Northern Railway Company, and in particular that the amount paid for dividends considerably exceeded the rateable proportion to the capital stock. An investigation was directed. The registrar of shares, Mr. Leopold Redpath, expressed a decided opinion that the investigation into his department would be useless, and, on its being pressed, absconded. The investigation developed a long-continued system of frauds of vast amount, to the amount, it was said, of nearly 250,000.

"Mr. Leopold Redpath pa.s.sed in society as a gentleman of ample means, great taste, and possessed of the Christian virtue of charity in no common degree. He had a house in Chester Terrace, handsomely furnished, and a "place" at Weybridge complete with every luxury that wealth could procure; gave good dinners with excellent wines; kept good horses and neat carriages. He was a governor of Christ's Hospital, the St. Ann's Schools, and subscribed freely to the most useful charities of London.

His appointment on the Great-Northern was worth 300 per annum; but it was supposed that this was only of consequence to Mr. Redpath as affording him a regular occupation and an opportunity of operating in the share-market, in which he was known to have extensive dealings. The directors of the railway appear to have been perfectly aware that their servant was living far beyond his salary, but they considered him to be a very successful speculator. Upon this splendid bubble being blown up, Redpath fled to Paris; but, finding that the French authorities were not inclined to protect him, he returned to London and surrendered himself.

"The mode in which this gigantic swindler had committed his frauds is simple enough. Having charge of the books in which the stock of the company is registered, he altered the sum standing in the name of some _bona fide_ stockholder to a much larger sum, generally by placing a figure before it, by which simple means 500 became 1,500, or 2,500, or any larger number of thousands. The surplus stock thus _created_ Redpath sold in the stock-market, forging the name of the supposed transferer, transferring the sum to the account of the supposed transferee in the register, and either attesting it himself, or causing it to be attested by a young man, his protege and tool, but who appears to have been free from guilty cognizance. In some instances the fraud was but the more direct course of making a fict.i.tious entry of stock, and then selling it.

By these processes the number of shareholders and the amount of stock on the company's register became greatly magnified, while, as the _bona fide_ holders of stock remained credited with their proper investments, there was no occasion for suspicion on their part. How Redpath dealt with subsequent transfers of the fict.i.tious stock does not appear. The prisoner was subjected to repeated examination before the police magistrates, when this prodigious falsification was thoroughly sifted, and the prisoner was finally committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court in the following year. It is said that the value of the leases, furniture, and articles of taste in Redpath's house in Chester Terrace is estimated at 30,000, and at Weybridge at a still larger sum. It is also said that Redpath and Robson, whose forged transfer of Crystal Palace shares has been recorded in this chronicle, were formerly fellow clerks.

"Lionel Redpath was tried, January 16th, 1857, at the Central Criminal Court, and, being found guilty, was sentenced to transportation for life.

At the same time a junior clerk in his office, Charles Kent, was also charged as his partner in the crime. It appeared that Kent had acted on many occasions as attesting witness to the forged transfers which Redpath had employed to carry out his ends; but, as no guilty knowledge on the part of the former was shown, he was acquitted.

"The railway company at first attempted to repudiate the forged stock which Redpath had put into circulation, but pressing remonstrances, not unaccompanied by threats, having been made by the Committee of the Stock Exchange, they consented to acknowledge it. Then came the question by whom the loss was to be borne; a question which was not solved until after considerable litigation. The directors a.s.serted that it ought to be paid out of the current income of the year, and so it was ultimately decided. This led to a further question between the guaranteed shareholders and the rest of the company. For the diminution of the year's earnings caused by taking up the fict.i.tious stock being so great as to render it impossible to satisfy the guaranteed dividends out of the residue, it was contended on the part of the holders of those shares that, by the provisions of the deed of settlement, the deficiency ought to be made up out of the next year's profits, so that the guarantee that they should receive their specified dividends was not clogged with the condition in case a sufficient amount of earnings in each year was made to pay them. This dispute led to a Chancery suit, the decree in which was in favour of the holders of the guaranteed shares."

A LOST TICKET.

"Now, then, make haste there, will you, an' give up your ticket,"

exclaimed a railway guard to a bandsman in the Volunteers returning from a review. "Didna I tell ye I've lost it?" "Nonsense, man; feel in your pockets, you cannot hae lost it." "Can I no?" was the drunken reply; "man, that's naething, I've lost the big drum!"

MELANCHOLY ACCIDENT.-SINGULAR ACTION.

The _Annual Register_ contains the following interesting case. July 25, 1857.-At the Maidstone a.s.sizes an action arising out of a singular and melancholy accident was tried. The action, Shilling _v._ The Accidental Insurance Company, was brought by Charlotte Shilling, widow and administratrix of Thomas Shilling, to recover from the defendants the sum of 2000, upon a policy effected by the deceased on the life of her father-in-law, James Shilling. The husband of the plaintiff, Thomas Shilling, carried on the business of a builder at Malling, a short distance from Maidstone. His father, James Shilling, lived with him; he was nearly 80 years old, and very infirm, and his son used to drive him about occasionally in his pony chaise. In the month of March, last year, an application was made to the defendants to effect two policies for 2000 each upon the lives of Thomas Shilling and James Shilling, and to secure that sum in the event of either of them dying from an accident, and the policies were completed and delivered in the following month of June. On the evening of the 11th of July, 1856, about half-past 7 o'clock, the father and son went from Malling with a pony and chaise, for the purpose of proceeding to a stone quarry at Aylesford, where Thomas Shilling had business to transact, and they never returned home again alive. There where two roads by which they could have got to the quarry from Malling, one of which was rather a dangerous one to be taken with a vehicle and horse, on account of a steep bank leading to the river Medway being on one side and the railway pa.s.sing close to the other; but this route, it appears, was much shorter than the other, which was nearly two miles round, and it was consequently constantly used both by pedestrians and carriages. About 8 o'clock the pony and chaise and the father and son were seen on this road, and upon arriving at the gate leading to the quarry, Thomas Shilling got out, leaving the pony and chaise in charge of his father. Mr. Garnham, the owner of the quarry, was not at home, and while one of the labourers was conversing with Thomas Shilling, the sound of an approaching train was heard, and the men advised him to go back to his pony, for fear it should take fright at the train, and he said he would do so, as it had been frightened by a train on a previous occasion.

He accordingly went towards the gate where he had left the pony and chaise, and from that time there was no evidence to show what took place.

The family sat up the whole night awaiting the return of their relatives in the utmost possible alarm at their absence; but nothing was heard of them until the following morning, when a bargeman found the drowned pony and the chaise and the dead bodies of the father and son floating in the Medway, near the spot where the chaise had been last seen on the previous evening. They were taken home, and a coroner's inquest was held, and the only conclusion that could be arrived at was that the pony had taken fright at the noise of the train, which appeared to have pa.s.sed about the time, and that he had jumped into the river, which at this spot was from 12 to 14 feet deep.

The policy on the life of the father had been a.s.signed to the son, whose widow claimed the two sums insured from the defendants. That payable on the death of the son they paid: but they refused to pay that due on the father's policy, and pleaded to the action several pleas, alleging certain violations of the conditions; and singularly enough, considering that they had not disputed the son's policy on the same ground, they now pleaded that the death was not the result of accident, but arose from wanton and voluntary exposure to unnecessary danger.

The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.

A CATASTROPHE.

Au old lady was going from Brookfield to Stamford, and took a seat in the train for the first and last time in her life. During the ride the train was thrown down an embankment. Crawling from beneath the _debris_ unhurt, she spied a man sitting down, but with his legs laid down by some heavy timber. "Is this Stamford?" she anxiously inquired. "No, madam,"

was the reply, "this is a catastrophe." "Oh!" she cried, "then I hadn't oughter got off here."

WEDDING AT A RAILWAY STATION.

Baltimore has had what it calls a romantic wedding at Camden Station. A few moments before the departure of the outbound Washington train, a gentleman accompanied by a lady and another gentleman, whose clerical appearance indicated his profession, alighted from a carriage and entered the depot. Upon the locks of the leader of the party the snows of fifty winters had evidently fallen, while the lady had apparently reached that age when she is supposed to have lain aside her matrimonial cap. Quietly approaching the officer on duty within the station, they asked for a room where a marriage ceremony might be privately performed. The request was readily granted, and under the leadership of the obliging officer, the party was conducted to the despatch room, a small lobby in the eastern part of the building, where in a few minutes the twain were made man and wife. With pleasant smiles, and a would-be-congratulated look upon their countenances, they mingled with the crowd in waiting; and when the gates were thrown open, arm in arm they boarded the train, their fellow-pa.s.sengers all the while ignorant of the interesting ceremony.

-_Ill.u.s.trated World_.

ENGINE FASCINATION.

The fascination which engines and their human satellites exercise over some minds is very great; and while speaking on the subject, I am reminded of a young man who haunted for years one of our chief termini: he was the son of a leading west end confectioner, so that his early training had in no way disposed him to an engineering life; but he was the most remarkable acc.u.mulation of statistics in connection therewith I over knew. The line employed several hundreds of engines, and he not only knew the names of all of them, but when they were made, and who had made them; when each one had last been supplied with a new set of tubes at the factory-this last, of course only referred to the engines employed on the main line, which he had an opportunity of seeing, and would miss when they were laid up for repair-and how this had had the pressure on its safety-valve increased, and this had been diminished. He had such a retentive memory for these and kindred facts, that I have seen the foreman of the works appeal to him for information, which was never lacking. His penchant was so well known that he had special permission for access to the works.

-_Chambers's Journal_.

COMPEt.i.tION FOR Pa.s.sENGERS.

Mr. Galt remarks:-"In the summer of 1857 the London and North-Western and Great Northern railways contended with each other for the pa.s.senger traffic from London to Manchester. First-cla.s.s and second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers were conveyed at fares, there and back, of seven and sixpence and five shillings respectively, the distance being 400 miles, and four clear days were allowed in Manchester. As might have been expected, trains were well filled, and, but for the fact that the other traffic was much interfered with, the fares would, it is said, have been remunerative. As it was, it is said the shareholders lost 1 per cent.

dividend.

"Another memorable contest was carried on about the year 1853 between the Caledonian and the Edinburgh and Glasgow Companies. The latter suddenly reduced the fares between Edinburgh and Glasgow for the three cla.s.ses from eight shillings, six shillings, and four shillings, to one shilling, ninepence, and sixpence. The contest was continued for a-year-and-a-half, and cost the Edinburgh and Glasgow Company nearly 1 per cent. in their dividends."

ACCIDENT HOAX.

The following impudent hoax, contained in a letter which appeared in the _Times_ in 1860, was most annoying to the officials of the Great Northern Company. It is headed:-

"Accident on the Great Northern Railway.

"To the Editor of the _Times_.

"Sir,-I beg to inform you of a serious accident, attended by severe injury, if not loss of life, which occured to-day to the 8 o'clock a.m.

train from Wakefield, on the Great Northern railway, near Doncaster, by which I was a pa.s.senger. As the train approached Doncaster, about 9 o'clock, the pa.s.sengers were suddenly alarmed by the vehement oscillation of the carriages. In a few seconds the engine had run off the line, dragging the greater part of the train with it across the opposite line of rails. By this time the concussion had become so vehement that the grappling chains connecting the engine, tender, and first carriage with the rest of the train providentially snapped. This circ.u.mstance saved the lives of many. But the engine, tender, and first carriage were hurled over the embankment, all three being together overturned, and the latter (a second-cla.s.s one) nearly crushed. The stoker was severely injured on the head, and his recovery is more than doubtful; the engine driver contrived to leap off in time to save himself with a few bruises.

The shrieks of the pa.s.sengers in the overturned carriage (three women and five men) were fearful; and for some time their extrication was impossible. One middle-aged woman had her thigh broken, another her arm fractured. One old man had one, if not two of his ribs broken. The pa.s.sengers in the other carriages, in one of which I was travelling, were less seriously injured, though sufficiently so to talk about compensation, instead of a.s.sisting in earnest those with broken limbs.

The line of rails was torn up for a considerable distance. Owing to the telegraph being out of gear, some delay in communicating with Doncaster was experienced. A surgeon and various hands at length arrived with a special train for the injured pa.s.sengers, who, after long delay, were removed to Doncaster. I, of course, as a medical man, rendered what a.s.sistance I could. Those worst injured were conveyed to the Railway Arms, the recovery of more than one being doubted by myself. At length a fresh train started from Doncaster, and we reached London nearly two hours after due.

The carelessness of the Company will, I hope, be the subject of your severest animadversion. The accident was caused by the tire of one of the right wheels of the engine having flown off; and it is clear that the engine was not in a condition to ply between the stations of the Great Northern railway.

I have no objection to your use of my name if you think fit to publish it.

Your obedient servant, Thomas Waddington, M.D., of Wakefield.

Morley's Hotel, Charing Cross, March 26.