EDITOR'S TABLE. 



699 



about the country for several years, 

 getting a miserable living in precarious 

 ways, and the woman's conduct was at 

 times so "queer " that in 1867 she was 

 sent to the State Lunatic Asylum in 

 Taunton, where she remained two years. 

 In 1875 she was caught in the perpetra- 

 tion of an elaborate set of frauds and 

 sent to Jail, but got out before the ex- 

 piration of her time through a techni- 

 cal mistake in her indictment. 



She is represented as illiterate and 

 in many ways very ignorant, but " she 

 has always been a keen observer, a 

 quick learner, and a shrewd student of 

 human nature. It would be more near- 

 ly correct to call her unmoral than im- 

 moral ; for from her extreme youth she 

 appeared to have a serious constitution- 

 al difficulty in discerning the difference 

 between right and wrong, between her 

 own property and her neighbors'. All 

 her thieving has been marked by a grand 

 air of unconsciousness, rather than by 

 eager, covetous greed. Her disposition 

 seems to be somewhat good-natured and 

 generous, and to show a kind of native 

 honhomie, and at the height of her pros- 

 perity as a ' banker ' she became very 

 popular with a certain set which was 

 especially rich in mesmerists, fortune- 

 tellers, and female physicians of the ir- 

 regular sort." She has " abundant cun- 

 ning," "a great natural gift of utter- 

 ance," "a singularly plausible manner," 

 and to her other accomplishments it 

 must be added that " she is one of the 

 most exuberant, spontaneous, imagina- 

 tive, and unnecessary liars that ever 

 breathed." 



This woman at length planted her- 

 self down in Boston as a "banker." 

 When she began, or how she began, is 

 involved in mystery. Her scheme seems 

 to have been copied in its main features 

 from that of a Bavarian swindler 

 an ex-actress named Adele Spitzeder 

 " which was operated in Munich from 

 1869 to 1872, and by which the Bavari- 

 ans were cheated out of millions of dol- 

 lars. . . . Both opened banks of deposit, 



promised preposterous returns of inter- 

 est, and successfuUv invited loans of 

 money from the public. Neither had 

 any pecuniary capital or offered any se- 

 curity, the sole and sufficient reliance 

 of each being upon her own impudence 

 and the combined cupidity and credu- 

 lity of her customers. Each made 

 friends by playing the Lady Bountiful 

 upon occasion, had a mixed party of 

 gulls and knaves committed to her 

 cause, drew herself out of poverty and 

 into luxurious comfort by means of her 

 bank, ended her career in prison, and 

 left assets enough behind her to pay 

 her creditors a dividend of about five 

 per cent." It is significant that the as- 

 tounding Bavarian fraud had run its 

 course and exploded, and was reported 

 ail over the world seven years before 

 the successful repetition of the experi- 

 ment was made in Boston. 



The main trick of Mrs. Howe was, 

 however, a shrewd improvement upon 

 the Bavarian method. For while Friiu- 

 lein Spitzeder took deposits from every- 

 body who would make them high and 

 low, rich and poor, male and female 

 Mrs. Howe artfully restricted the bene- 

 fits of her institution to women, and 

 to those, moreover, of small means. No 

 woman owning a house could make a 

 deposit, and no deposits were received 

 less than two hundred dollars, nor more 

 than one thousand dollars. Interest at 

 the rate of eight per cent, per month 

 was paid every three months that is, 

 twenty-four per cent, quarterly and 

 the payment was in advance. To the 

 question how it was possible to pay 

 such large interest, the reply was, " We 

 never disclose the methods by which 

 we do business"; " we do not solicit"; 

 "you need not deposit unless you 

 wish"; "we never give references." 

 But, notwithstanding this, it Avas stat- 

 ed that the "Ladies' Deposit" is a 

 charitable institution for the benefit of 

 single ladies, old and young, of small 

 means, and it was obscurely intimated 

 that the money was intrusted to the 



