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 solicitor takes the case and transacts all the business connected
with it. A barrister is the lawyer who is employed by the solicitor to
conduct the case in court and make the pleadings. He never comes in
contact with the client, but takes the brief and all instructions from
the solicitor. The Queen's Counsel is a lawyer of a higher rank, and
whenever his serene lordship takes a brief he must, to keep up his
dignity, "be supported" by a barrister. So my reader will perhaps
understand the raison d'etre of the proverb, "The lawyers own England."
As no solicitor can plead in court, so no Queen's Counsel will come in
direct contact with a client, and must be "supported" by a barrister.
Ergo, any unfortunate having a case in court must fee two, if not three
legal sharks to represent him, if represented at all.
We employed as solicitor a Mr. David Howell of 105 Cheapside, and a
thoroughgoing, unprincipled rascal he proved to be. He was a small,
spare, undersized man, with little beady eyes, light complexion, red
hair, and stubby beard, and when he spoke it was with a thin reedy
voice. From first to last he managed our case in exactly the way the
prosecution would have desired. He bled us freely, and altogether we
paid him nearly $10,000, and our defense by our eight lawyers--four
Queen's Counsels and four barristers--was about the lamest and most
idiotic possible.
We early came to the unanimous conclusion that in our country Howell
would have had to face a jury for robbing us, and that but one of our
eight lawyers had ability enough to appear in a police court here to
conduct a hearing before an ordinary magistrate.
I do not propose to enter into the details of our preliminary hearings
before the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, or of the trial. Both the
hearings and trial were sensational in the highest degree, and attracted
universal attention all over the English-speaking world. Full-page
pictures of the trial appeared in all the illustrated journals of Europe
and America, and our portraits were on sale everywhere.
After many hearings before Sir Sidney Waterlaw, we were finally
committed for trial.
Editorial from the London Times of Aug. 13, 1873:
THE BANK FORGERIES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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