RICHARD ARMITAGE AND CHARLES THOMAS. EXECUTED FOR FORGERY.

THE crime for which these men justly suffered was a forgery of the very worst description, having for its effect a scandalous breach of public trust—a robbery upon the very corporation which they were bound to protect from the nefarious attempts of others.

It appears that they were connected with a person named Roberts, who was apprehended on a charge of swindling, on which he was remanded from the police-office to Coldbath-Fields’ Prison, in the year 1810. In a few days he succeeded in making his escape from the jail, in company with a man named Harper, by the most extraordinary means. From the evidence adduced before the magistrates, before whom an inquiry into the escape took place, it appeared that the prisoners were locked up in the usual way at night, but that in the morning they were found to have escaped. On the jail being examined, six gates which had been locked were found standing open, and it was discovered that the prisoners had completed their design by scaling the outer wall, which they had ascended by means of the scaffolding round a lodge which was in the course of being built, and from which they had reached the ground by means of a rope which was found still hanging on the outside. The most anxious inquiries were made after Roberts, but it was not until the month of April 1811 that he was discovered at a tavern at Vauxhall, where he had passed himself off as a country attorney, and was taken into custody. He then, to save his own life, impeached the partners in his villany, and Armitage and Thomas, who were clerks in the Bank of England, were in consequence secured. Armitage was first taken, and he was examined at Marlborough-street, and committed for trial on charges of forging dividend warrants to the amount of £2400; and Thomas was almost immediately afterwards apprehended, and committed on the same charges.

At the ensuing Sessions they were put on their trial, when the case proved against them was, that they were bank clerks in the Imperial Annuity Office, and that they had forged a warrant to obtain the dividends due upon a sum of money belonging to a person who had been dead three years, and whose executors had not applied for the property. In pursuance of the warrants forged in this case the amount paid was £360, and the prisoner Thomas signed the book as an attesting witness. The case was proved by Roberts and his wife, whose testimony, however, was corroborated by that of other witnesses, and the prisoners were found guilty and were sentenced to death.

The unhappy men were executed on the 24th of June, 1811, at the Old Bailey, pursuant to their sentence. Armitage, from severe illness, was supported to the scaffold by a friend; he was also accompanied by a clergyman, to whose admonitions he appeared to pay great attention. His companion was a catholic, and was attended by a priest of that persuasion. He exhibited great fortitude.

The secret of Roberts’ escape was not discovered for a considerable time afterwards, when he was induced to confess, that through the means of a bribe offered to the person who swept the cells, he was enabled to procure impressions in wax of the keys which would be required to open the doors through which he and his fellow-prisoner would have to pass. Having obtained these, he soon got keys made, and he was assisted in his flight by this “friend at court.” It was supposed, however, that he had some other more powerful ally than a sweeper, and considerable changes in the management of the jail were subsequently made.

The punishment for the crime of forgery, a few years only before this time, was much less severe than that which was now inflicted, the increase of the offence having rendered an alteration in its severity necessary. It would appear, however, that the efforts of legislators produced anything but the desired effect, the frequency of the offence being increased instead of diminished. The ancient punishment for this crime we find thus minutely described in a London periodical publication for the year 1731:—

“June 9th.—This day, about noon, Japhet Crook, alias St. Peter Stranger, was brought to the pillory at Charing Cross, according to his sentence for forgery. He stood an hour thereon; after which a chair was set on the pillory; and he being put therein, the hangman with a sort of pruning-knife cut off both his ears, and immediately a surgeon clapped a styptic thereon. Then the executioner, with a pair of scissors, cut his left nostril twice before it was quite through, and afterwards cut through the right nostril at once. He bore all this with great patience; but when, in pursuance of his sentence, his right nostril was seared with a red-hot iron, he was in such violent pain that his left nostril was let alone, and he went from the pillory bleeding. He was conveyed from thence to the King’s Bench Prison, there to remain for life. He died in confinement about three years after.”