Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in ReformationGriffiths, Arthur
Philosophy
Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in Reformation
Griffiths, Arthur
Millbank Prison (London, England); Penal colonies; Prisons -- Great Britain -- History
The gold-dust robbery of 1839, the first of its kind, was cleverly
and carefully planned with the assistance of a dishonest employee. A
young man named Caspar, clerk to a steamship company, learned through
the firm’s correspondence that a quantity of gold-dust brought in a
man-of-war from Brazil had been transhipped at Falmouth for conveyance
to London. The letter informed him of the marks and sizes of the cases
containing the precious metal, and he with his father arranged that
a messenger should call for the stuff with forged credentials, thus
anticipating the rightful owner. The fraudulent messenger, by the
help of young Caspar, established his claim to the boxes, paid the
wharfage dues, and carried off the gold-dust. Presently the proper
person arrived from the consignees, but found the gold-dust gone. The
police were at once employed, and after infinite pains they discovered
the person, one Moss, who had acted as the messenger. Moss was known
to be intimate with the elder Caspar, father of the clerk to the
steamship company, and these facts were deemed sufficient to justify
the arrest of all three. They also ascertained that a gold-refiner,
Solomons, had sold bar gold to the value of £1,200 to certain bullion
dealers. Solomons was not straightforward in his replies as to where
he got the gold, and he was soon placed in the dock with the Caspars
and Moss. Moss presently turned approver, and implicated “Money Moses,”
another Jew, for the whole affair had been planned and executed by
members of the Hebrew persuasion. “Money Moses” had received the
stolen gold-dust from Moss’ father-in-law, Davis, or Isaacs, who was
never arrested, and passed it on to Solomons by his daughter, a widow
named Abrahams. Solomons was now also admitted as a witness, and
his evidence, with that of Moss, secured the transportation of the
principal actors in the theft. In the course of the trial it came out
that almost every one concerned except the Caspars had endeavoured
to defraud his accomplices. Moss peached because he declared he had
been done out of the proper price of the gold-dust; but it was clear
that he had tried to appropriate the whole of the stuff, instead of
handing it or the price of it back to the Caspars. “Money Moses” and
Mrs. Abrahams imposed upon Moss as to the price paid by Solomons; Mrs.
Abrahams imposed upon her father by abstracting a portion of the dust
and selling it on her own account; Solomons cheated the whole lot by
retaining half the gold in his possession, and only giving an I. O.
U. for it, which he refused to redeem on account of the row about the
robbery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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