“Mr. Leopold Redpath passed in society as a gentleman of ample means, great taste, and possessed of the Christian virtue of charity in no common degree. He had a house in Chester Terrace, handsomely furnished, and a “place” at Weybridge complete with every luxury that wealth could procure; gave good dinners with excellent wines; kept good horses and neat carriages. He was a governor of Christ’s Hospital, the St. Ann’s Schools, and subscribed freely to the most useful charities of London. His appointment on the Great-Northern was worth £300 per annum; but it was supposed that this was only of consequence to Mr. Redpath as affording him a regular occupation and an opportunity of operating in the share-market, in which he was known to have extensive dealings. The directors of the railway appear to have been perfectly aware that their servant was living far beyond his salary, but they considered him to be a very successful speculator. Upon this splendid bubble being blown up, Redpath fled to Paris; but, finding that the French authorities were not inclined to protect him, he returned to London and surrendered himself. “The mode in which this gigantic swindler had committed his frauds is simple enough. Having charge of the books in which the stock of the company is registered, he altered the sum standing in the name of some _bonâ fide_ stockholder to a much larger sum, generally by placing a figure before it, by which simple means £500 became £1,500, or £2,500, or any larger number of thousands. The surplus stock thus _created_ Redpath sold in the stock-market, forging the name of the supposed transferer, transferring the sum to the account of the supposed transferee in the register, and either attesting it himself, or causing it to be attested by a young man, his protegé and tool, but who appears to have been free from guilty cognizance. In some instances the fraud was but the more direct course of making a fictitious entry of stock, and then selling it. By these processes the number of shareholders and the amount of stock on the company’s register became greatly magnified, while, as the _bonâ fide_ holders of stock remained credited with their proper investments, there was no occasion for suspicion on their part. How Redpath dealt with subsequent transfers of the fictitious stock does not appear. The prisoner was subjected to repeated examination before the police magistrates, when this prodigious falsification was thoroughly sifted, and the prisoner was finally committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court in the following year. It is said that the value of the leases, furniture, and articles of taste in Redpath’s house in Chester Terrace is estimated at £30,000, and at Weybridge at a still larger sum. It is also said that Redpath and Robson, whose forged transfer of Crystal Palace shares has been recorded in this chronicle, were formerly fellow clerks.