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
"I then went to a more pretentious locality, where I procured a silk hat
draped with mourning crape, put the Glengarry in my pocket, and became a
Frenchman. At this moment I discovered that I had left in my room at the
hotel a large silk neck-wrapper on which were embroidered my initials. I
immediately stepped into a shop and left my new purchases, resuming the
Scotch cap, and started for the hotel (where I had given no name), to
secure the dangerous article left behind. Coming in sight of the hotel,
I saw a man stationed opposite, leaning on a cane, who appeared to be
watching the house. As I approached nearer he kept his eyes covertly
fixed upon me; therefore, instead of entering the hotel, I walked past
it and turned the next corner, glancing backward as I did so, and, to my
dismay, saw the man following me. I now adopted the same plan of action
that succeeded so well at Cork, and in half an hour I had shaken him off
and returned to the place where I had left my new silk hat and valise.
Donning the hat, with valise in hand, I was soon seated in an Irish
jaunting car, on my way to a station about ten miles out on the railway
to Belfast.
"Upon reflection I was satisfied that the chambermaid had found the silk
wrapper and taken it to the hotel office. There the initials, together
with the knowledge of my arrival at so unusual an hour, without baggage,
and my early departure, had aroused suspicion, and the police had been
notified. At about 11 o'clock I arrived at the station, and going into a
store paid my Dublin cabman and called for lunch. About five minutes
before the train was due from Dublin I walked into the empty station,
presented myself at the ticket office, and said: 'Parlez vous Francais,
Monsieur?' and received the reply, 'No.' I then said in a mongrel of
French and English that I wished for a ticket to Drogheda--not daring to
purchase one through Belfast. Supposing me to be a French gentleman, he
was very polite and ordered the porter to take my baggage to the
platform. There I found myself the solitary waiting passenger. As the
train approached I saw a pair of heads projecting from the carriage
windows, eagerly scanning the platform. Two men jumped off, and,
hastening to the station master began to talk to him in an excited
manner, all the time glancing toward me. As I passed near the group to
get on the train, I heard the agent say: 'He is a Frenchman.' No doubt
he informed them that I had purchased a ticket to a way station only--a
fact that would naturally allay suspicion. At the next stopping place
they actually arrested a man, but went no further.
"I afterward ascertained that twelve men were arrested on that and the
preceding day, among the number being a fraudulent debtor trying to
escape by the same steamer, the Atlantic.
"The following extracts from contemporary newspapers will give the
reader some idea as to what a 'hot' place Ireland was for me:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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