Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General

by Charles James Lever

I was struck the other day by an account of an application made to the Lord Mayor of London by a country clergyman, to give, as a warning to others, publicity to a letter he had just received from the East. The clergyman, it seems, had advertised in the ‘Times’ for pupils, and gave for address a certain letter of the Greek alphabet. To this address there came in due time an answer from a gentleman, dated Constantinople, stating that he was an Anglo-Indian on his way to England, to place his two sons in an educational establishment; but that having, by an excursion to Jerusalem, exhausted his immediate resources, he was obliged to defer the prosecution of his journey till the arrival of some funds he expected from India—certain to arrive in a month or two. Not wishing, however, to delay the execution of his project, and being satisfied with the promises held forth by the advertiser, he purposed placing his sons under his care, and to do so, desired that forty pounds might be remitted him at once, to pay his journey to England, for which convenience he, the writer, would not alone be obliged, but also extend his patronage to the lender, by recommending him to his friend Sir Hugh Rose, who was himself desirous of sending his sons to be educated in England. The address of a banker was given to whom the money should be remitted, and an immediate reply requested, or “application should be made in some other quarter.”

Now, the clergyman did not answer this strange appeal, but he inserted another advertisement, changing, however, the symbol by which he was to be addressed, and appearing in this way to be a different person. To this new address there came another letter, perfectly identical in style and matter: the only change was, that the writer was now at the Hôtel de la Reine d’Angleterre at Buda; but all the former pledges of future protection were renewed, as well as the request for a prompt reply, or “application will be made in another quarter.”

The clergyman very properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the offender; nor was there in the ‘Times,’ or in the other newspapers where the circumstances were detailed, one single surmise as to the identity of this ingenious individual. It is the more singular, since this man is a specialty—an actual personification of some of the very subtlest rogueries of the age we live in!

If any of my readers can recall a very remarkable exposure the ‘Times’ newspaper made some ten or twelve years ago, of a most shameful fraud practised upon governesses, by which they were induced to deposit a sum equivalent to their travelling expenses from England to some town on the Continent, as a guarantee to the employer, they will have discovered the gentleman with the two sons to be educated—the traveller in Syria, the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, the Anglo-Indian who expects eight hundred pounds in two months, but has a present and pressing necessity for forty.

The governess fraud was ingenious. It was done in this way: An advertisement appeared in the ‘Times,’ setting forth that an English gentleman, travelling with his family abroad, wanted a governess—the conditions liberal, the requirements of a high order. The family in question, who mixed with the very best society on the Continent, required that the governess should be a lady of accomplished manners, and one in every respect qualified for that world of fashion to which she would be introduced as a member of the advertiser’s family. The advertiser, however, found that all the English ladies who had hitherto filled this situation in his family had, through the facilities thus presented them of entrance into life, made very advantageous marriages; and to protect himself against the loss entailed by the frequent call on him for travelling expenses—bringing out new candidates for the hands of princes and grand-dukes—he proposed that the accepted governess should deposit with him a sum—say fifty pounds—equivalent to the charge of the journey; and which, if she married, should be confiscated to the benefit of her employer.

The scheme was very ingenious; it was, in fact, a lottery in which you only paid for your ticket when you had drawn a prize. Till the lucky number turned up, you never parted with your money. Was there ever any such bribe held forth to a generation of unmarried and marriageable women? There was everything that could captivate the mind: the tour on the Continent—the family who loved society and shared it so generously—the father so parental in his kindness, and who evidently gave the governess the benediction of a parent on the day she may have married the count; and all secured for what—for fifty pounds? No; but for the deposit, the mere storing up of fifty pounds in a strong box; for if, after two years, the lady neither married nor wished to remain, she could claim her money and go her way.

The success was immense; and as the advertiser wrote replies from different towns to different individuals, governesses arrived at Brussels, at Coblentz, at Frankfort, at Mayence, at Munich, at Nice—and heaven knows where besides—whose deposits were lodged in the hands of N. F. That ingenious gentleman straightway departed, and was no more seen, and only heard of when the distress and misery of these unhappy ladies had found their way to the public press. The ‘Times,’ with all that ability and energy it knows how to employ, took the matter up, published some of the statements—very painful and pathetic they were—of the unfortunate victims of this fraud, and gave more than one “leader” to its exposure. Nor was the Government wanting in proper activity. Orders were sent out from the Foreign Office to the different legations and consulates abroad, to warn the police in the several districts against the machinations of this artful scoundrel, should he chance to be in their neighbourhood. Even more distinct instructions were sent out to certain legations, by which R. N. F. could be arrested on charges that would at least secure his detention till the law officers had declared what steps could be taken in his behalf. It was not the age of photography, but a very accurate description of the man’s appearance and address was furnished, and his lofty stature, broad chest, burly look, and bushy whiskers—a shade between red and auburn—were all duly posted in each Chancellerie of the Continent.

For a while it seemed as if he lived in retirement—his late success enabled this to be an “elegant retirement”—and it is said that he passed it on the Lake of Como, in a villa near that of the once Queen Caroline. There are traditions of a distinguished stranger—a man of rank and a man of letters—who lived there estranged from all the world, and deeply engaged in the education of his two sons. One of these youths, however, not responding to all this parental devotion, involved himself in some scrape, fled from his father’s roof, and escaped into Switzerland. N. F., as soon as he could rally from the first shock of the news, hastened after, to bring him back, borrowing a carriage from a neighbouring nobleman in his haste. With this he crossed the frontier at Chiasso, but never to come back again. The coachman, indeed, brought tidings of the sale of the equipage, which the illustrious stranger had disposed of, thus quitting a neighbourhood he could only associate with a sorrowful past, and a considerable number of debts into the bargain. Another blank occurs here in history, which autobiography alone perhaps could fill. It would be unfair and un-philosophical to suppose that because we cannot trace him he was inactive: we might as reasonably imply that the moon ceased to move when we lost sight of her. At all events, towards the end of autumn of that last year of the war in the Crimea, a stout, well-dressed, portly man, with an air of considerable assurance, swaggered into the Chancellerie of her Majesty’s Legation at Munich, notwithstanding the representations of the porter, who would, if he had dared, have denied him admittance, and asked, in a voice of authority, if there were no letters there for Captain F. The gentleman to whom the question was addressed was an attaché of the Legation, and at that time in “charge” of the mission, the Minister being absent. Though young in years, F. could scarcely, in the length and breadth of Europe, have fallen upon one with a more thorough insight into every phase and form of those mysteries by which the F. category of men exist. Mr L. was an actual amateur in this way, and was no more the man to be angry with F. for being a swindler, than with Ristori for being Medea or Macready being Macbeth. Not that he had the slightest suspicion at the time of F.‘s quality, as he assured him that there were no letters for that name.

“How provoking!” said the Captain, as he bit his lip. “They will be so impatient in England,” muttered he to himself, “and I know Sidney Herbert is sure to blame me.” Then he added aloud, “I am at a dead-lock here. I have come from the Crimea with despatches, and expected to find money here to carry me on to England; and these stupid people at the War Office have forgotten all about it. Is it not enough to provoke a saint?”

“I don’t know; I never was a saint,” said the impassive attaché.