A LADY FORGER
MISS MARY AGNES ILLINGWORTH, OF TOOTING, AT THE OLD BAILEY.
Highly interesting to the student of human nature has been the
prosecution, which is just concluded, of Miss Mary Agnes Illingworth, of
Tooting, who first appeared before a London magistrate some months ago,
charged with forging postal orders, post cards and stamps, and in various
other ways attempting to defraud the General Post Office. Miss Illingworth
is young, talented, and highly connected, and, what lends an additional
interest to the affair, she is alleged to have committed several of the
misdemeanours with which she has been charged in order to revenge herself
upon a former friend.
At the Old Bailey, London, on Monday, July 25th, the young lady listened
to the proceedings rather as an interested spectator, than as a culprit,
awaiting sentence, and never for a moment appeared to realise the gravity
of her position. Mr. Philbrick, Q.C., prosecuted on behalf of the
Postmaster General. In opening his case, he said that the prisoner was a
lady artist, who was extremely clever with tier pen. On April 19th, she
wrote to an establishment in Oxford Street, ordering three electric belts,
and enclosing what purported to be a postal order for 15s. This was really
a 1s. order, but, by a most clever manipulation of the figures, the young
lady had added a "5" to the "1," and had changed the "half-penny" for the
fee into "three halfpence." The Old Bailey jury unhesitatingly found the
prisoner guilty of the
FORGERY OF A POSTAL ORDER,
ignoring her counsel's plea that she had been made the victim of some
malicious person, who had ordered the belts in her name, and enclosed the
forged order for the purpose of causing her annoyance. But the forgery of
the postal order was only one of the charges against Miss Illingworth. On
another indictment she was charged with altering a registered letter
receipt in order to obtain £5 from the Post Office Authorities. In a third
case it was stated that the prisoner attempted to obtain £200 from the
Post Office Savings Bank by a false claim. But with none of these charges
did Mr. Philbrick proceed, counsel for the prosecution contenting him-self
with, perhaps, the most serious of all, the charge of sending a long
series of libellous post cards to a music-hall artiste, against whore all
sorts of malicious and unfounded allegations had been made. The strange
thing about this charge, said counsel, was the fact that the prisoner had
been seen and cautioned against sending these libellous, and often
obscene, epistles through the post. On one occasion, it was stated, she
wrote a full confession, and the then Postmaster General, the late Mr.
Raikes, cautioned her, but told her, in reply to her question whether she
was to be prosecuted, that no steps would be taken against her unless the
libels were repeated. Within a week after that, the young lady recommenced
her libelling, and the police had at last to interfere. In the course of
the proceedings at the Old Bailey, a number of witnessess connected with
the Postal Service gave evidence as to a number of
FORGED POSTCARDS AND STAMPS,
with all of which Miss Illingworth was identified. Many letters and
envelopes franked "On Her Majesty's Service," all forgeries, were also put
in evidence against the fair occupier of the dock. Most of these had been
stopped in the post by the authorities, but in other cases the forgeries
had been so skilfully executed that the post cards and letters had been
delivered in due course. After all the evidence had been adduced, Miss
Illingworth herself rose to address the jury. She denied the charges in
toto, and said that other persons had formed a conspiracy against her. The
jury were proof against this essentially feminine defence, and found the
prisoner guilty. Mr. Gill, counsel for Miss Illingworth, pleaded that
sentence might be postponed, as he desired to call in the medical man and
nurse who had attended the prisoner, who had suffered very much from
hysteria. In view of the extraordinary nature of the case, the Recorder
consented, and the prisoner, though convicted, will not be sentenced until
the October Sessions of the Central Criminal Court.
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