“The deception began at the very outset of the scheme. Bear in mind that the man’s name was Johnson, that he was from a town in Connecticut, had married his wife in New York, and was in the store of a merchant of the great metropolis. There was a clerk in that store by the name of Johnson, and he was from Connecticut; we will say Smithville. He had married in New York about four years before this occurrence. He was a steady, well-behaved man, and contemplated going west. His wife had a small amount of property in her own name, but she was not personally known to the merchant, and the merchant did not know that Johnson hailed from Smithville. There was another clerk in the adjoining store whose name was likewise Johnson. For convenience in designating the two men, I will call the second one Roberts. He came from Brownsville, in Connecticut. He had been married about four years. He was a fast fellow, and rather unscrupulous, though his employer did not know that he was in any way dishonest. The two clerks had become acquainted by accident.
“When Roberts ascertained that Johnson conceived the idea of going west, he (Roberts) laid a plan for swindling somebody. His wife was as unscrupulous as himself, and so she entered into the scheme. Roberts was of vigorous health, and could pass an examination with a life insurance company without trouble. He was of the height, complexion, and general appearance of Johnson; and this fact, added to the other coincidences greatly favored his scheme. So he came to us, and obtained the insurance, as before stated. When we made the inquiry of the merchant, his answers were satisfactory, and all the references were exactly as he stated them.
“His plan worked completely. He waited patiently until Johnson went west, and then he went likewise. He did not, however, go to the same city.
“He explained that it was his intention, a month or two after his arrival out west, to obtain from a body-snatcher a corpse which would answer his description, and then his wife would send the proper telegram to her friends in the east, and proceed there with the remains, which would appear to be those of her husband.
FORTUNE FAVORS THE WICKED.
“Fortune favored his scheme more than he had anticipated. At a boarding-house where he was temporarily lodged, he found that a boarder named Johnson was in very bad health, and not expected to live. Affecting an interest in him, and claiming to discover a relationship, he tended him carefully until the time of his death. The detective had a suspicion that the sick man was helped along, but of that there was no proof. Immediately after the death of the invalid, the telegram was sent, and the wife proceeded east, as before related. She had been at one time an actress, and was very good at simulating grief. She deceived all the relatives of her husband in the most complete manner. They thought her bowed down and broken-hearted with grief, when all the time she was doubtless laughing in her sleeve. The honest Johnson, whose name had been used without his knowledge or consent, was found, after the detective’s return, to have lived at St. Louis, the place to which he had first emigrated, and had gone thence to New Orleans. He was much surprised when he learned what had occurred, and positively denied ever having an insurance on his life, or on that of anybody else. I suppose the swindler Johnson is still in Australia, and trust that he will end his days there in peace and quiet—though I fear his success in this instance will embolden him to some other fraud. His operation was fairly, though not exceedingly profitable, as, after deducting the premiums for the first year of insurance, the expenses of his expedition, and the money he returned, he did not net more than ten thousand dollars by the operation.”
HOW POLICIES ARE VITIATED.
Some of the insurance companies insert in their policies an announcement that the policy becomes void if death results from execution on the gallows, or in any other legal way, or from suicide. On one occasion a man whose life was insured was killed in a duel, and the company refused to pay the policy, on the ground that the man died virtually by his own act. His adversary was known to be a dead shot. The lawyer of the company, after stating all the arguments to show that a man who goes a duelling is, for all practical purposes, a suicide, clinched his argument by declaring that a man who would go out with such an adversary might know beforehand that he would be killed, and therefore his death was voluntary. I believe the court did not sustain the claim of the company, but required the amount named in the policy to be paid to the heirs of the unfortunate duellist.
I have heard it argued by insurance men that, where a person insured takes to hard drinking, and dies from the effects of rum, he dies by his own hand, and the suicide clause exempts the insurance company. In some cases, I believe, this claim has been sustained; but it is now generally discarded. A few cases have occurred in the United States where men have insured their lives for the benefit of their families, and have then deliberately killed themselves. The insurance companies, in those cases, have resisted the payment of the claims; but, I believe, they have been generally, though, not always, allowed.
POPULARITY OF SUICIDE IN CHINA.