The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
another name with a woman who helped him in his schemes, at a third he
did the actual business of passing his notes. This business was always
effected in disguise; none of his agents or instruments saw him except
in disguise, and when his work was over he put it off to return home.
One favourite personation of his was that of an infirm old man, wearing
a long black camlet cloak, with a broad cape fastened up close to his
chin. With this he wore a big, broad-brimmed slouch hat, and often green
spectacles or a green shade. Sometimes his mouth was covered up with red
flannel, or his corpulent legs and gouty feet were swathed in flannel.
His natural appearance as Price was a compact middle-aged man, inclined
to stoutness, erect, active, and not bad-looking, with a beaky nose,
keen grey eyes, and a nutcracker chin. His schemes were very ingenious.
On one occasion he pretended, in one disguise, to expose a swindler
(himself in another disguise), whom a respectable city merchant
inveigled into his house in order to give him up to the police. The
swindler proposed to buy himself off for £500; the offer was accepted,
the money paid by a thousand-pound note, for which the swindler got
change. The note, of course, was forged. He victimized numbers of
tradesmen. Disguised as an old man, he passed six forged fifty-pound
notes on a grocer, and then as Price backed up his victim in an action
brought against the bank which refused payment of the counterfeits. But
his cleverest coup was that organized against the lottery offices.
Having in one of his disguises engaged a boy to serve him, he sent the
lad, dressed in livery, round the town to buy lottery tickets, paying
for them in large (forged) notes, for which change was always required.
By these means hundreds and hundreds of pounds were obtained upon the
counterfeits. The boy was presently arrested, and a clever plot was laid
to nab the old man his master, but Price by his vigilance outwitted the
police. Another dodge was to hire boys to take forged notes to the Bank,
receive the tickets from the teller, and carry them back to him (Price).
He forthwith altered the figures, passed them on by the same messenger
to the Bank cashier, and obtained payment for the larger amount.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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