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Virginia
Enterprise, October 8, 1873 |
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As
the United States grew and people began to travel away from their
home towns, it became only too easy for confidence tricksters to create
"respectable" personalities suited to each new location.
This particular crook was more than usually inventive, an aspect of
his crime that has not escaped the notice of the reporter who seems
extremely amused by the whole thing! |
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The
office of Wells, Fargo & Co., in this city, mourns the unheralded
departure of George S. Browne, their express clerk and collector.
An examination of his books shows that he spent in the neighborhood
of $1,000 not his own. Being unwell, he asked leave of absence for
one week, in order to go to the Genoa Warm Springs. Leave was granted,
and on the 17th of last month he departed, ostensibly for the springs.
Time wore on, and thinking he might be worse, as he had not been heard
from for about eight days after starting for the springs, Prendergast,
of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s, telegraphed to Walley, proprietor of the
Warm Springs Hotel, to know how his invalid clerk was getting along.
Walley telegraphed back that no such man had been at his place, and
then the cat began to crawl out of the bag. It was found that after
going to Carson City and making some inquiry about the stage for Genoa,
he had quietly boarded the train for Reno. He told some of his acquaintances
on the train that Carson was such a dull place that he had concluded
to run down to Reno and remain till morning. He was a young man of
overwhelming and crushing dignity of deportment and faultless was
the raiment that he wore. He generally appeared as though he had just
breakfasted heartily upon some score of ramrods, and he moved about
in his white vests an awful model for the young men of the establishment
wherein he condescended to display his exemplary demeanor. When about
to start for the springs he called attention to the little satchel
he carried, saying he must at least take along two or three shirts.
This was to show that he was leaving behind his whole gorgeous wardrobe
and to allay the least odor of suspicion. An inspection of his room,
since the cat has come forth from the bag, shows no store of gorgeous
apparel there - not a white vest left behind. His old travel-battered
trunk still stands conspicuously in the office, he having bought a
new trunk on the sly and sent off his white vests in advance. Browne
formerly figured at Galesburg, Illinois; at Kalamazoo, Michigan; at
Omaha, Nebraska; and at Belmont, Austin, Battle Mountain and other
places in the eastern part of this State. He was for a time in the
collection department of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s office at San Francisco.
He has probably gone to see his parents, who reside at Glen Falls,
Warren county, New York. |
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