FullReads

I had scarcely finished this brief, imperfect sketch, when I read in ‘Galignani’ the following:–

“Swindling on the Continent.–A letter from Venice of March 29 gives us the following piece of information which may still be of service to some of our readers, though, from the fact with which it concludes, it would seem that the proceedings, of the party have been brought to a standstill, at least for some time. This is not, however, it may be recollected, the first occasion we have had to bring the conduct of the individual referred to under the notice of our readers for similar practices:–

“‘I am informed that one Mr Newton, alias Neville, alias Fane, and with a dozen other aliases, has been arrested at Padua for swindling. This ubiquitous gentleman has been travelling for some years at the expense of hotel-keepers, and other geese easily fleeced, on the Continent In the year 1862, Mr Neville and his two sons made their suspicious appearance at Venice, and they now, minus the younger son, have visited Padua as Mr Robert N. Newton and son, taking up their residence at the Stella d’Oro. They arrived without luggage and without money, both of which had been lost in the Danube; but they expected remittances from India! The obliging landlord lent money, purchased clothes, fed them gloriously, and contrived, between the 8th Feb. and 25th of March, to become the creditor of Newton and son for 1000 swanzig. The expenses continued, but the remittances never came. The patient landlord began to lose that virtue, and denounced these aliases as swindlers. The police of Vienna, hearing of the event, sent information that these two accommodating gentlemen had practised the victimising art for two months in December last at the Hotel Regina Inghilterre, at Pesth, run up a current account of 700 florins, and decamped; and a hotel-keeper recognised the scamps as having re-resided at the Luna, in Venice, in 1862, and “plucked some profit from that pale-faced moon.” Mr Newton’s handwriting proved him to be in 1863 one Major Fane, who had generously proposed to bring all his family, consisting of ten persons, to pass the winter at the Barbesi Hotel at Venice, if the proprietor would forward him 700 fr., as, owing to his wife’s prolonged residence at Rome and Naples, he was short of money, which, however, he expected, would cease on the arrival of supplies from Calcutta. These gentlemen are now in durance vile, and there is no doubt but that this letter will lead to their recognition by many other victims.'”

Let no sanguine enthusiast for the laws of property imagine, however, that this great man’s career is now ended, and that R. N. F. will no more go forth as of old to plunder and to rob. Imprisonment for debt is a grievous violation of personal liberty certainly, but it is finite; and some fine morning, when the lark is carolling high in heaven, and the bright rivulets are laughing in the gay sunlight, R. N. F. will issue from his dungeon to taste again the sweets of liberty, and to partake once more of the fleshpots of some confiding landlord. F. is a man of great resources, doubtless. When he repeats a part, he feels the same sort of repugnance that Fechter would to giving a fiftieth representation of Hamlet, but he would bow to the necessity which a clamorous public imposes, however his own taste might rebel against the dreariness of the task. Still, I feel assured that he will next appear in a new part. We shall hear of him–that is certain. He will be in search of a lost will, by which he would inherit millions, or a Salvator Rosa that he has been engaged to buy for the Queen, or perhaps he will be a missionary to assist in that religious movement now observable in Italy. How dare I presume, in my narrow inventiveness, to suggest to such a master of the art as he is? I only know that, whether he comes before the world as the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, a proprietor of the ‘Times,’ the agent of Lord Palmerston, or a recent convert from Popery, he will sustain his part admirably; and that same world that he has duped, robbed, and swindled for more than a quarter of a century will still feed and clothe him–still believe in the luggage that never comes, and the remittance that will never turn up.