Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in SolitudeBidwell, Austin
General
Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
Bidwell, Austin
Bank fraud -- England; Bank of England; Bidwell, Austin; Criminals -- Biography
The Paris night express lands one at early dawn in London, nearly always
weak on the legs, however. I breakfasted with Mac, and after that took
the bills to the various banks on which they were drawn, and leaving
them for their acceptance, I called again the next day and received them
back, bearing across the face, the magic words:
"London, Aug. 14, 1872.
"Accepted for the Union Bank of London.
"E. Barclay, Manager.
"J. Wayland, Assistant Manager."
Then I hurried to the Grosvenor, and we all looked at them with
curiosity, for it was upon the imitation of just such acceptances that
our whole plan was based. I intended to present this and many more
batches of genuine bills for discount at the bank until the officials
should become accustomed to discounting for me. In the mean time, as
fast as I got genuine acceptances and bills, we kept on making
imitations of them for future use, only leaving out the date until such
time as we should be ready to put them in for discount. Of course, the
success or failure of our whole plan turned upon this point. Is it the
custom of the Bank of England (in 1873) to send acceptances offered for
discount to the acceptors for verification of signatures?
This is always done in America, and had this very requisite precaution
been used by the Bank of England our plan would have been fruitless and
we should have been a few thousands out of pocket; but, if not, then we
could throw into the hopper enough acceptances of home manufacture so
that through the red tape routine of the bank millions of sovereigns
would be ground out into our pockets.
Taking my deposit book and the genuine bills, I went to the bank and
left the bills for discount. This was at once done and the amount placed
to my credit. I drew L10,000, and that night found me once more one of
500 unfortunates paying tribute to Neptune. This time I landed at Ostend
and took the train for Amsterdam. There I repeated the Paris operation,
securing L10,000 in genuine bills. I returned to London, and as before
left them for acceptance. Then my companion manufactured a lot of
imitations and put them away with those previously manufactured, to be
all ready when the day came to use them. The genuine bills were then
discounted. Again and again I went to the Continent, repeating the
operation, until at last my credit at the bank was firm as a rock, and
we were ready to reap our harvest. But these operations, simple as they
seem, lasted over a period of six months, and had been made at heavy
cost. Our ordinary living expenses were not less than $25 a day for the
three, while our extraordinary expenses were enormous. I probably
traveled 10,000 miles over the Continent in my bill-buying expeditions
to Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort and Vienna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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