Cambridge Chronicle 27 May 1869: Joseph Mayle convicted of fraud

Joseph Mayle, 30, accountant, indicted for obtaining under false pretences a quantity of grocery goods from Octavius Blinkhorn, with intent to cheat and defraud George Williams, at Cambridge, on the 24th of December, 1868, and forging the name of John Toller, of Trumpington, pleaded not guilty.

Mr. MAYD for the prosecution; the prisoner conducted his own defence.

In this case the evidence for the prosecution went to show that on the 24th of December last, the prisoner was on a visit at Mrs. Ann Mayle’s, at Trumpington, when he gave the latter party a written order to obtain goods from Mr. Williams, Petty Cury, Cambridge, proportions to be signed by “John Toller,” farmer, Trumpington. The note was to this effect: — “Dear sir, — Please to let the bearer have the 5s. worth of grocery, and any other Trumpington person bringing a note for me. — Yours, &c., John Toller.” The goods were delivered to Mrs. Mayle according to order, who took them home and handed them over to the prisoner, they being consumed in the house afterwards. The prisoner cross-examined Mrs. Mayle with the desire to show that she was implicated in the matter. The note was denied by Mr. Toller (before the magistrates) to be either written by him, or at his request. There was no other John Toller, at Trumpington but him, and he knew nothing of the prisoner. [Mr. Toller was to [sic] ill to be in attendance at the Court today.]

The evidence for the prosecution having been given,

The prisoner proceeded to defend himself as follows:— My lord, I sent to Mr. Eaden, the magistrates’ clerk, for a copy of the original depositions, which he took down at my hearing before the magistrates, and he coolly said “If he has them they will be no use to him; I understood he means to plead guilty.” [It was here explained by Mr. Cross, Deputy Magistrates’ Clerk, that the applicant for the depositions was told that they had been sent to the Clerk of the Peace’s office, where copies could be obtained]. The only account I have had of what took place was the report in the Cambridge Express, which is the most disgraceful that was ever written. I leave you, my lord, to imagine my feelings on being told that I was thus to be deprived of my only source of information necessary to my defence - to be told this, added to a heart already crushed beneath the burden of its folly, I am not ashamed to say that I shed bitter tears. “The spirt of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?” Why Mr. Eaden should say this, I am at a loss to know, while a society consisting of a “combination” of men were allowed to have them, and thus “arm” themselves against a single individual, to try and break the already bruised reed, and I to be left in the dark as to what they were adding to or taking from the original depositions to suit their own purpose. And if all people were to be judged by what anybody else chose to say of them through malice, ignorance, or misconstruction, who in this envious world would be free of stain? I therefore hope your lordship will see that I have not been fairly treated. Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard the evidence, and the principal part - although not all - is true; there are several false statements in the woman’s evidence, as you doubtless remember. These, I have no doubt, you will deal with as they deserve. If you knew the thoughts that were in my heart at the time I gave these orders, I should not be required to say one more word; but, since a great writer has said “You could not if my heart were in thy hand - thou canst not while it is in my possession,” what I wish to put before you is this — First, I admit, as I did on my first examination, in the statement you have just heard read, that I gave these orders for the goods, which the parties I gave them to obtained, but not with the slightest intention that the persons from whom they were to obtain the goods should be defrauded of their money, but fully intended that I and no one else would pay for the same, which would have been done the same week, before the summons had been taken out, had I have been aware that such proceedings would be taken, as I could have obtained the money sooner than I expected, had I thought that such would have been the case. But the making use of another person’s name I have since seen the danger of, and no one could feel more bitterly the remorse and sorrow I have felt during the past nine weeks while in a prison cell for having done so, for the arrows which pierce deepest into the soul, and rankle for the most painfully there, are those which are pointed and feathered with our own sins. And it has learnt me a lesson I shall never forget, and it will lie heavy on my mind for some time, like the fancied spot of blood on the little hand of Macbeth’s wife which would not come out, and as it is the first it will be the last time. But, gentlemen, why Mr. Toller should think fit to disown me as his legal nephew, I am sorry to say I cannot tell. I have very great and bitter reasons to remember that I am his nephew by marriage, by which my brightest prospects dashed to the ground, and I have long had to drink one of the bitterest cups of disappointment this world can mix. But it is not for any bitter feeling that I thus made use of his good name, and I sincerely hope he will pardon me for having done so. And, gentlemen, I appear before you, not like an unknown man in a colony, and an unprincipled adventurer, for anything you can tell, going about from one place to another carrying on a systematic life of fraud. No, gentlemen, I am in the town where I first breathed the air and saw the light of this world, and I am one of a family of twenty-one children, not one of whom have a stain upon their character, either living or dead, and the son of parents to whom no man can but point the finger and say there goes as honest a man and woman as ever trod the streets of Cambridge. And I trust their son’s only aim has ever been to follow in their footsteps and copy their example. And is there a single person in this town can say I have not done so up to the present time? And when you remember that I started into life in this town a stripling shop boy, and by honest industry and perseverance, becoming a shareholder in an Oriental Bank, I think, gentlemen, you cannot but feel assured that no system of fraud would have gone on so far without being discovered. I hope, therefore, and most earnestly pray that you will not allow this mistake to class me among the criminals of our land, and an outcast to society, and thus deprive me of my good name, which would “enrich you not, but make me poor indeed,” and thus save my parents’ good name and memory becoming dishonoured in their son.

His LORDSHIP having summed up the case, the Jury returned a verdict of guilty.

Mr. METCALFE said there were two other indictments of a like nature, but they did not intend to proceed upon them.

His LORDSHIP said he thought prisoner had turned his education to a very bad account. It was a very bad offence, and for which many a man was sent for penal servitude. He would be sentenced to nine calendar months’ hard labour.