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
How the Pinkertons unearthed the $254,000 wrapped in old clothing in
Mac's trunk at the European Express Office, 44 Broadway, would take too
much time to tell here, or how circulars were sent out to the banks and
trust companies warning them to hold all funds deposited by any of our
party, or how Pinkerton and his men recovered large sums in various
places, must all be passed over here. Suffice it to say that the fatal
piece of blotting paper was produced in New York along with many lesser
points of evidence, and after a hard legal fight Mac was finally ordered
to be given up to the English Government to stand his trial for
complicity in the great bank forgery.
The legal proceedings before the commissioner lasted three full months.
The array of counsel on both sides made it a forensic contest between
giants, in which all past history was invoked for precedents. This
extradition case attracted wide attention.
After United States Commissioner Gutman had finally decided to surrender
him to the demand of the British Government, appeal was made to the
United States Circuit Court, Judge Woodruff, then to the Supreme Court,
Judge Barrett, before whom Mac was brought by writs of habeas corpus;
but the commissioner's decision was sustained. Mac was sent to Fort
Columbus for safe-keeping while counsel were vainly arguing on new writs
of habeas corpus and certiorari, but before any conclusion could be
reached, he was hurried away by his custodians. He had scarcely time to
bid good-bye to his counsel, when with a United States officer he was
hurried into a carriage in Chambers street, guarded by Chief Deputy
Marshal Kennedy and Deputies Robinson and Crowley, and driven rapidly
down Broadway to the Battery, so that the large crowd who gathered to
witness his departure from the metropolis had very little time to feast
their eyes.
He was transferred from the Battery to Governor's Island by a tugboat
and subsequently handed over by the deputy marshals to the charge of
Major J. P. Roy, who had him escorted to Fort Columbus.
The following morning United States Marshal Fiske, with Deputies Crowley
and Purvis; Mr. Peter Williams, solicitor of the Bank of England; Sergt.
Edward Hancock, a London detective; Deputy Marshal Colfax and others,
boarded the steam tug P. C. Schultze at the Battery and steamed across
to Governor's Island. At 10.30 o'clock Capt. J. W. Bean, on post at the
fort, received an order to deliver him over.
Capt. J. W. Bean then delivered him over to United States Marshal
Fiske's charge, with whom he descended the steps from the balcony of the
fort, and marched, with a deputy at either side, through tiled pathways
and groved and shaded avenues, to the wharf at the other end of the
island, where the Schultze was awaiting his arrival. A large crowd of
spectators, soldiers and civilians lined the wharf, lingering anxiously
to see him off. But he walked very leisurely, smoked, laughed and
appeared in a state of unaccountable good humor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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