At the more fortunate end of the social scale, (as outlined in the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain compiled by Edwin Chadwick in 1844), the average life expectancy of ‘professional persons and gentry, and their families’ in Manchester in 1842 was 38 years, two decades more than the 18 years expected among the working classes. This formed a striking contrast, even though the latter would have been skewed by the high infant mortality rate. Chadwick also commented: ‘It is an appalling fact that, of all who are born in the labouring districts of Manchester, more than 57 per cent die before they attain 5 years of age, that is, before they can be engaged in factory labour’.
It is not surprising that the wealthy moved out of the city to the more salubrious suburbs, hoping to increase their chances of good health and a longer life. Statistics like these reveal the real risk of illness and the likelihood for most of an early death. This led to an all-consuming preoccupation with health amongst the citizens of Victorian Manchester, whatever their social status.
Detective Sergeant Caminada discovered this phenomenon by chance in 1876. It was a Saturday evening and Caminada was making his way home after a hard day’s work at the detective office, when he passed a pawnbroker’s shop on Deansgate. As he walked by, Caminada saw the manager, who was a friend of his, and popped in for a quick gossip. Inside the shop, the pawnbroker and his assistant were perusing some prints laid out on the counter and, on the other side, there was a young man ‘whose appearance was striking in the extreme’. He left a strong impression on Caminada:
His cheeks were hollow, shrivelled, and cadaverous; his eyes large and unnaturally bright; his form shrunken and bent; and altogether he had the appearance of one to whom life was a burden, and to whom a natural death would be a happy release.
Suspicious of the provenance of the prints and alarmed by the client’s countenance, Caminada questioned him and ascertained that the prints had been stolen from the man’s employer. After arresting him, the detective proceeded to search his house and was shocked at what he found there: ‘in two tin trunks I discovered one hundred and fifty-three doctor’s bottles, eighty-six of which either did contain or had contained medicine, and the rest had been used for lotions’.
The thief had fallen into the grip of a ruthless quack doctor and when Caminada interrogated him further, the whole sorry tale was revealed: ‘he then made a clean breast of as foul a piece of rascality, rapacity, and roguery as I ever met with’. The young man had received a pamphlet in the street and after reading it, he became convinced that he was ‘hopelessly afflicted with all the horrible ailments most graphically set forth in that insidious and diabolical pamphlet’. His only hope, he believed, was to seek the ‘miraculous curative powers’ of the doctor who had issued the material.
But the ‘medicine’ had had the opposite effect and gradually his health had deteriorated. Meanwhile, he was rapidly spending his savings to procure more potions and once he had run out of money, the ‘doctor’ suggested a loan company, which ultimately led to his descent into crime. Inspired by this pitiful story, Caminada decided to put an end to the nefarious practices of the fake doctors, who callously exploited the weak and vulnerable. Referring to them as ‘bloodsuckers of the human race’, he considered them to be one of the worst kinds of criminal: ‘Quacks are, in truth, greater enemies to society than the garotter or the burglar’. What particularly irked Caminada was that their chief victims were the poor and, convinced that these ‘doctors’ were completely fraudulent, he determined to expose them.
In the nineteenth century, the trade of quack doctors flourished in Manchester. Intelligent and expert con artists, they knew how to exploit the fears of a public strongly aware of their imminent mortality. Caminada soon found that many of them lived in ‘large and handsomely furnished houses, and dressed in the height of fashion, sporting splendid jewellery’. They set up practices in plush office suites complete with waiting rooms, surgeries and medical equipment. Their advertisements and pamphlets flooded the city, enticing passersby with cures and tonics for all manner of illnesses. They organised special consultations in public venues, where potential patients could discuss their health problems for free.
Once the victims had unburdened themselves of their anxieties, they would be offered a miraculous cure to restore their health – but this time, it would require a fee. The relentless cycle began with the patient needing more medicine, which the doctor would supply at an exorbitant cost. As their funds dwindled and their fear of death increased, the doctors would offer the services of a loan company so that the patient could continue their ‘treatment’. With no one to regulate these counterfeit medical practices, the victim soon descended into debt or a life of petty crime, as they endeavoured to keep up with the payments in a desperate effort to preserve their fragile health. Caminada outlined the modus operandi of these ‘pitiless harpies’ in his memoirs:
When the disease is hopeless, and medical men abandon the patient, the quack takes him in hand, and gives him an impetus towards the grave, while at the same time he rifles his pockets. The very essence of the system is to exhaust the physical powers to such a degree that the nostrums produce no effect unless they are taken in constantly increasing potions.
On 24 October 1876, Caminada visited a ‘Dr Lewis’ at his premises. When the undercover detective told him that he had been experiencing a pain in his heart and was troubled by ‘sweaty’ hands, the doctor offered to treat him at a cost of 10s 6d and asked him to return the following day with a urine sample. Caminada went straight to a local chemist’s and bought a mixture comprising six ounces of water, three drops of hydrosulphide of ammonia and 10 drops of saffron syrup. When he returned to Dr Lewis’s house, the doctor examined him and listened to his chest with a stethoscope, before pronouncing his diagnosis: ‘You are suffering from extreme nervousness, but your heart is all right. I have some medicine that will act on the blood and nerves at once’. With that, he produced a potion that Caminada was to take for three weeks at a cost of 40 guineas (roughly £3,000 today). When Caminada asked him for the results of his urine sample, he shook his head saying it was ‘very bad’.
The detective returned to the surgery five days later with a warrant for Dr Lewis’s arrest. In the meantime, the city analyst had tested the ‘medicine’ and found it to be a compound of tincture of cardamom and sal volatile (an early form of baking powder), often prescribed for weakness and faintness in the form of a warm cordial drink. Doctor Lewis was arrested and fined £20. The same week Caminada brought 12 other charlatan doctors to trial.
One of them was Charles Davies Henry, whom the detective had visited at his place of business while disguised as a warehouse worker, and again claming to be suffering from a pain in his heart and sweating hands. The doctor examined his tongue, felt the muscles of his arms and took his pulse, before concluding that his state was ‘a most deplorable one’ and that he was ‘in a sad condition of despondency’. He prescribed some medicine and gave the patient general advice on how to improve his health, which included washing in cold water every morning, taking exercise with dumbbells, having a glass of bitter beer with dinner and drinking only one cup of tea a day, and never green tea. He also exhorted Caminada to have plenty of company, to go to the theatre and to ride outside omnibuses.
When this information was later relayed in court, the public gallery burst into laughter. The doctor prescribed a ‘thorough course of treatment’ costing £10, which he offered to accept in instalments. Analysis revealed that the medicine was simple iron salts. Henry was fined £15.
Caminada was commended for his actions against the phony doctors in the Manchester Courier:
The subject is an unpleasant one in every sense; but the evil wrought to society by these rapacious impostors is so enormous that we should certainly not be doing our duty did we not seek to enforce the plain lesson taught by the relation of Sergeant Caminada’s adventures.
Following his initial success, Camina
da went on to expose many more quack doctors. In one case he received instructions to investigate a complaint about a pamphlet, advertising a miracle cure called ‘A Grain of Gold’. Through information gained from a clerk employed to stick gummed labels on the leaflets, Caminada discovered the likely identity of the author.
One evening, carrying a black bag, a travelling rug and a walking stick, Caminada went to the surgery at Acton House, in Bridge Street near the Queen’s Theatre. An elderly man opened the door and ushered the detective into an elegantly furnished apartment, with long curtains hanging from the ceiling. After a few moments, a professional-looking gentleman wearing a long cloak entered the room and asked him to explain his symptoms. Presenting himself as a clerk for a firm of solicitors in Buxton, Caminada outlined his imaginary illness. The doctor examined his tongue and felt his pulse. He declared that Caminada was ‘in a very bad way’, but he could cure him within three weeks at a cost of £10. The crook doctor was Arthur Chadwick, alias Buchanan. He had started his career as a tailor’s apprentice but had been arrested for theft. After that, he went through a number of questionable occupations, before finally re-inventing himself as ‘an eminent specialist’.
One of Chadwick’s colleagues in crime was Dr Nelson, who held his practice in the upmarket area of King Street. Caminada sent two officers to the black and gold-painted premises, easily identified by a plaque on the door with ‘Medical Institute’ emblazoned in gilt letters. There were window boxes on the sills and a large lamp of coloured glass hanging over the entrance. Once again the chambers were ornately furnished, with oil paintings in gilt frames and statues on pedestals. One officer was disguised as a butcher from Bakewell and the other as a factory worker from Accrington. They were both diagnosed as suffering from consumption. Nelson, whose real name was William Kay, was originally a weighing clerk at a colliery in Derbyshire, before rising through the ranks of the sham medical profession to become a partner in the ‘Medical Institute’. Chadwick was later sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment with hard labour and Kay, six months. After the trial, Caminada secured the money in Chadwick’s bank account and used it to repay those he had swindled.
Despite his skill at disguise and his considerable success in bringing many bogus doctors to justice, Detective Caminada would meet one very accomplished swindler, who would prove to be more than his match. In 1877 Caminada spotted an advertisement for the ‘Food of Foods’, a medicine sold by the Reverend E. J. Silverton of Nottingham. The tonic had apparently performed miracles for a variety of ailments and was particularly effective in curing deafness. Immediately distrustful, Caminada wrote to the reverend, pretending he was the superintendent of a Sunday school and keen to get married but currently in the grip of a mysterious illness. By return of post, he received further testimonials of Silverton’s miraculous cures and a questionnaire, as well as a request for an advance fee of 27s 6d.
In Nottingham the Reverend Edward James Silverton was a well-known and highly respected Baptist Minister, who had funded a new church for his congregation. When the Mayor of Nottingham had opened Exeter Hall in 1876, the Nottinghamshire Guardian had reported, ‘There was something noble in the venture of their pastor, Mr Silverton, who must have great confidence in the sentiment of the human heart’. This statement would later prove to be prophetic, but in a more sinister way. The mayor had presented Silverton with a decorated scroll, conveying the congregation’s ‘great esteem and affection’.
Caminada continued the correspondence, before handing the matter over to an interested society to investigate further, whose activities resulted in the reverend moving his headquarters to London. Yet, when Silverton’s advertisements began to reappear on billboards in Manchester, Caminada decided that it was time to meet this famous doctor. Silverton had obviously been doing well and on this visit he hired the Free Trade Hall, where he delivered a series of health lectures and offered free daily consultations. Caminada pretended to be suffering from gout and, putting on an old shoe, he limped into the hall.
Reverend Silverton was not available, so he saw his assistant who, without examining Caminada’s foot, diagnosed rheumatism and advised ‘a good clearing out’ at a charge of 35 shillings, which was at least double the average worker’s weekly wage. The detective followed the advice and purchased the proffered ‘Food of Foods’ tonic. On leaving the hall, he finally met Silverton, an intelligent-looking man with bushy sideburns and small, round-rimmed glasses, who offered him a follow-up consultation.
On analysis the miraculous ‘Food of Foods’ was found to be nothing more than lentils, bran, brown flour and water. The ‘Elixir of all Diseases’ was definitely a scam. Caminada obtained summonses against Silverton and his assistant, surgeon Charles Mitcheson, for conspiracy to defraud. The publicity encouraged many individuals to come forward to share their stories of extortionate fees and merciless exploitation by these duplicitous doctors. One particularly distressing case was that of a poor woman, who had even sold her bed to gain medical advice for her ailing son. Nevertheless, Caminada’s investigation did not end quite as he had hoped, as neither the Medico-Ethical Society nor the public prosecutor would take up the case. The stipendiary magistrate offered to bind Caminada over to prosecute Silverton at his own cost but he declined, hoping that the adverse publicity would be sufficient to put the charlatan out of business once and for all.
Unfortunately, this clever impostor remained at large and continued practising medicine with his daughter, who later joined his flourishing business. When he spotted an advertisement for her services on a special visit to Manchester in the newspapers, Caminada sent a detective to her surgery disguised as a ‘deaf’ cattle dealer. He also wore blue spectacles to give the impression that he had a problem with his eyes. The female ‘doctor’ gravely informed the ‘cattle dealer’ that he was indeed afflicted with deafness and would lose his hearing altogether without treatment. She added that his hearing problems were also affecting his sight.
After this, Caminada could not resist an opportunity to see this ‘lady quack’ for himself, so he went to her surgery on the second floor of the Mosley Hotel. When his turn came, a stylishly dressed woman ushered him into the office where, in the centre of the room, there was a table covered with ear trumpets. The female doctor, also wearing fashionable clothes, asked him about his complaint in ‘the most silvery tones’. She then took a small lamp and placed a tube in Caminada’s ear. After the examination, she said that the hearing in his right ear was partly destroyed and entirely gone in the other, for which she proposed a four-month course of treatment at a cost of £29 6d. Caminada concluded that Miss Silverton was just as much a fraud as her father: ‘This lady quack, a worthy descendant of her “wonderful-curing” papa, had not been tutored in vain’.
The Reverend E. J. Silverton continued his dishonest practice with no further challenges until his death in 1895, at the age of 60. At his well-attended funeral another local clergyman, the Reverend Joseph Clark gave a moving eulogy, as reported in the Nottingham Evening Post:
We feel as we commit the precious dust of our departed friend to his grave that we are committing one who was a loving husband, an indulgent father, and a true friend, whose tongue was eloquent for Christ, and whose heart beat true in the cause of his fellow men.
Had Caminada been in attendance, he would have added his own searing tribute to this con artist, who exploited hapless victims with his ‘eloquent tongue’ and defied the law for 30 years.
Despite his repeated attempts, Caminada was unable to rid the streets completely of dubious medical practitioners:
Quack doctors have unfortunately infested society for many generations. Although many attempts have been made to expose them, yet they have, by means offraudulent pretences and almost fabulous sums spent in advertising, carried on a lucrative business in all parts of the kingdom.
As social conditions improved towards the end of the century, there was less need for their disreputable ministrations. However, there were plenty
of other clever charlatans with elaborate ruses waiting to take their place, as well as an endless supply of gullible targets.
Chapter Five
Sophisticated Swindles and Cunning Confidence Tricks
(1878–1884)
Few cities in the world have within them so many thieves as Manchester. The pavement of Cottonopolis is incessantly trodden by rogues. This is not surprising. The facility afforded for hiding in a crowd induces those who are badly disposed to resort hither from all parts of the globe. A great number of these persons are fixed constantly in this great City. Some come only like birds of passage – at the approach of great occasions, or during the racing or other busy seasons. Among those permanently located in the City are a class of thieves of incredible effrontery, who work what is called the “confidence trick”.
(Jerome Caminada, Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life, 1895)
With his unerring instinct for rooting out deception, Caminada tackled all kinds of con artists and swindlers. He solved numerous cases involving a colourful cast of shady characters, who used aliases and nicknames to evade arrest. Some operated simple confidence tricks, like ‘ringing the changes’ and the ‘ring dropping’ scam, while others ran complex and often seemingly impenetrable ruses.
In 1878 a deputation from the Manchester and Salford Association of Pawnbrokers lodged a complaint about a rise in the pledging of fake, or ‘duff’, jewellery. The chief constable handed the matter over to Caminada. After making enquiries, he discovered that the racketeers placed advertisements in the local newspapers for loans, in return for pawn tickets for valuable articles as security. When potential moneylenders redeemed the tickets they would find that the pawned jewellery was worth far less than the money they had naïvely handed over. By responding to the requests, Caminada gathered enough evidence to arrest the gang of six men who perpetrated the ‘deep-laid conspiracy’.
The Real Sherlock Holmes Page 5