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
"Monday next has been fixed for the trial, and the depositions
taken before the Lord Mayor at the Justice Room of the Mansion
House by Mr. Oke, the chief clerk, have been printed for the
convenience of the presiding judge and of the counsel on both
sides. They extend over 242 folio pages, including the oral and
documentary evidence, and make of themselves a thick volume,
together with an elaborate index for ready reference. Within living
memory there has been no such case for length and importance heard
before any Lord Mayor of London in its preliminary stage, nor one
which excited a greater amount of public interest from first to
last. The Overend Gurney prosecution is the only one in late years
which at all approaches it in those respects, but in that the
printed depositions only extended over 164 folio pages, or much
less than those in the Bank case, in which as many as 108 witnesses
gave evidence before the Lord Mayor, and the preliminary
examinations--twenty-three in number from first to last--lasted
from the first of March until the 2d of July, exclusive of the time
spent in remands."
From the London Times, Aug. 10, 1873:
"On the opening of the August sessions of the Old Bailey Central
Criminal Court. The court and streets were much crowded from the
beginning, and continued so throughout the day. Alderman Sir Robert
Carden, representing the Lord Mayor; Mr. Alderman Finis, Mr.
Alderman Besley, Mr. Alderman Lawrence, M.P., Mr. Alderman Whetham
and Mr. Alderman Ellis, as commissioners of the Court, occupied
seats upon the bench, as did also Alderman Sheriff White.
"Sheriff Sir Frederick Perkins, Mr. Under-Sheriff Hewitt and Mr.
Under-Sheriff Crosley, Mr. R. B. Green, Mr. R. W. Crawford, M.P.,
Governor of the Bank. Mr. Lyall, Deputy Governor, and Mr. Alfred de
Rothschild were present. The members of the bar mustered in force,
and the reserved seats were chiefly occupied by ladies. Mr.
Hardinge Gifford, Q.C. (now Lord Chancellor of the British Empire),
and Mr. Watkin Williams, Q.C. (instructed by Messrs. Freshfield,
the solicitors of the bank), appeared as counsel for the
prosecution."
For eight mortal days the final trial dragged on, and there we were
pilloried in that horrible dock--a spectacle for the staring throngs
that flocked to see the young Americans who had found a pregnable spot
in the impregnable Bank of England.
The misery of those eight days! No language can describe it, nor would I
undergo it again for the wealth of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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