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Perl Best Practices Standards and Styles for Developing
Maintainable Code 1st Edition Damian Conway Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Damian Conway
ISBN(s): 9780596001735, 0596001738
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Year: 2005
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Download at Boykma.Com
 Perl Best Practices

Damian Conway

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Perl Best Practices
by Damian Conway

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 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

1. Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Three Goals 3
This Book 5
Rehabiting 7

2. Code Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Bracketing 9
Keywords 11
Subroutines and Variables 12
Builtins 13
Keys and Indices 14
Operators 14
Semicolons 15
Commas 17
Line Lengths 18
Indentation 19
Tabs 20
Blocks 22
Chunking 23
Elses 24
Vertical Alignment 26
Breaking Long Lines 27
Non-Terminal Expressions 29
Breaking by Precedence 29
Assignments 30

v
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 Ternaries 31
Lists 32
Automated Layout 33

3. Naming Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Identifiers 37
Booleans 40
Reference Variables 41
Arrays and Hashes 43
Underscores 44
Capitalization 45
Abbreviations 46
Ambiguous Abbreviations 47
Ambiguous Names 48
Utility Subroutines 49

4. Values and Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

String Delimiters 51
Empty Strings 53
Single-Character Strings 53
Escaped Characters 54
Constants 55
Leading Zeros 58
Long Numbers 59
Multiline Strings 60
Here Documents 61
Heredoc Indentation 61
Heredoc Terminators 62
Heredoc Quoters 64
Barewords 65
Fat Commas 66
Thin Commas 68
Low-Precedence Operators 70
Lists 71
List Membership 71

5. Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Lexical Variables 73
Package Variables 75

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 Localization 77
Initialization 78
Punctuation Variables 79
Localizing Punctuation Variables 81
Match Variables 82
Dollar-Underscore 85
Array Indices 88
Slicing 89
Slice Layout 90
Slice Factoring 90

6. Control Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
If Blocks 93
Postfix Selectors 94
Other Postfix Modifiers 96
Negative Control Statements 97
C-Style Loops 100
Unnecessary Subscripting 101
Necessary Subscripting 103
Iterator Variables 105
Non-Lexical Loop Iterators 108
List Generation 110
List Selections 111
List Transformation 112
Complex Mappings 113
List Processing Side Effects 114
Multipart Selections 117
Value Switches 118
Tabular Ternaries 121
do-while Loops 123
Linear Coding 125
Distributed Control 126
Redoing 128
Loop Labels 129

7. Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Types of Documentation 132
Boilerplates 133
Extended Boilerplates 138

Table of Contents | vii

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 Location 139
Contiguity 140
Position 140
Technical Documentation 141
Comments 141
Algorithmic Documentation 142
Elucidating Documentation 143
Defensive Documentation 144
Indicative Documentation 145
Discursive Documentation 145
Proofreading 148

8. Built-in Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Sorting 149
Reversing Lists 152
Reversing Scalars 153
Fixed-Width Data 154
Separated Data 157
Variable-Width Data 158
String Evaluations 161
Automating Sorts 164
Substrings 165
Hash Values 166
Globbing 167
Sleeping 168
Mapping and Grepping 169
Utilities 170

9. Subroutines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Call Syntax 175
Homonyms 177
Argument Lists 178
Named Arguments 182
Missing Arguments 184
Default Argument Values 185
Scalar Return Values 186
Contextual Return Values 188
Multi-Contextual Return Values 191
Prototypes 194

viii | Table of Contents

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 Implicit Returns 197
Returning Failure 199

10. I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Filehandles 202
Indirect Filehandles 204
Localizing Filehandles 205
Opening Cleanly 207
Error Checking 208
Cleanup 209
Input Loops 211
Line-Based Input 212
Simple Slurping 213
Power Slurping 214
Standard Input 216
Printing to Filehandles 217
Simple Prompting 217
Interactivity 218
Power Prompting 220
Progress Indicators 222
Automatic Progress Indicators 224
Autoflushing 224

11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Dereferencing 227
Braced References 228
Symbolic References 230
Cyclic References 232

12. Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Extended Formatting 236
Line Boundaries 237
String Boundaries 239
End of String 240
Matching Anything 240
Lazy Flags 242
Brace Delimiters 242
Other Delimiters 246
Metacharacters 247

Table of Contents | ix
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 Named Characters 247
Properties 248
Whitespace 249
Unconstrained Repetitions 250
Capturing Parentheses 252
Captured Values 253
Capture Variables 254
Piecewise Matching 257
Tabular Regexes 259
Constructing Regexes 261
Canned Regexes 263
Alternations 265
Factoring Alternations 266
Backtracking 269
String Comparisons 271

13. Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Exceptions 274
Builtin Failures 278
Contextual Failure 279
Systemic Failure 280
Recoverable Failure 281
Reporting Failure 283
Error Messages 284
Documenting Errors 286
OO Exceptions 287
Volatile Error Messages 290
Exception Hierarchies 291
Processing Exceptions 292
Exception Classes 293
Unpacking Exceptions 296

14. Command-Line Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Command-Line Structure 300
Command-Line Conventions 301
Meta-options 303
In-situ Arguments 304
Command-Line Processing 306

x | Table of Contents
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 Interface Consistency 311
Interapplication Consistency 314

15. Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Using OO 319
Criteria 320
Pseudohashes 322
Restricted Hashes 322
Encapsulation 323
Constructors 333
Cloning 334
Destructors 336
Methods 338
Accessors 340
Lvalue Accessors 346
Indirect Objects 349
Class Interfaces 351
Operator Overloading 354
Coercions 356

16. Class Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Inheritance 360
Objects 361
Blessing Objects 365
Constructor Arguments 367
Base Class Initialization 371
Construction and Destruction 376
Automating Class Hierarchies 383
Attribute Demolition 384
Attribute Building 387
Coercions 388
Cumulative Methods 389
Autoloading 393

17. Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Interfaces 397
Refactoring 401
Version Numbers 404
Version Requirements 405

Table of Contents | xi
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 Exporting 407
Declarative Exporting 409
Interface Variables 411
Creating Modules 415
The Standard Library 417
CPAN 418

18. Testing and Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Test Cases 420
Modular Testing 421
Test Suites 424
Failure 425
What to Test 426
Debugging and Testing 427
Strictures 429
Warnings 431
Correctness 432
Overriding Strictures 433
The Debugger 436
Manual Debugging 437
Semi-Automatic Debugging 439

19. Miscellanea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Revision Control 441
Other Languages 442
Configuration Files 445
Formats 449
Ties 451
Cleverness 453
Encapsulated Cleverness 454
Benchmarking 456
Memory 459
Caching 460
Memoization 462
Caching for Optimization 463
Profiling 464
Enbugging 466

xii | Table of Contents

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 A. Essential Perl Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

B. Perl Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

C. Editor Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

D. Recommended Modules and Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

E. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Table of Contents | xiii

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 Preface

This book is designed to help you write better Perl code: in fact, the best Perl code
you possibly can. It’s a collection of 256 guidelines covering various aspects of the art
of coding, including layout, name selection, choice of data and control structures,
program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object
orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging. These guidelines have been
developed and refined over a programming career spanning 22 years. They’re
designed to work well together, and to produce code that is clear, robust, efficient,
maintainable, and concise.
Mind you, that’s not easy to achieve. Conciseness can be the natural enemy of clar-
ity; efficiency the nemesis of maintainability. And armouring code to make it suffi-
ciently robust can undermine clarity, efficiency, conciseness, and maintainability.
Sometimes it’s a case of: “Choose any one.”
This book doesn’t try to offer the one true universal and unequivocal set of best prac-
tices. There are as many ways of measuring code quality, and as many dimensions in
which code can be judged, as there are programmers to make those assessments.
Each programmer and each programming team will have their own opinions about
the most important and desirable attributes of code.
What this book offers instead is a set of best practices: a set that is coherent, widely
applicable, balanced in its aims, and that is based on real-world experience of how
code is actually written, rather than on someone’s ivory-tower theories on how code
ought to be created. Most of all, it’s a set of practices that actually work, and that
many developers around the world are already using. Much like Perl itself, these
guidelines are about helping you to get your job done, without getting in the way.
If you’re an experienced developer, it’s almost certain that you won’t like all of the
suggestions that follow. You will find some of them unnatural or counterintuitive;
others may feel excessively rigid and un-Perlish. Maybe they’ll just seem unnecessar-
ily different from the ways you’re used to writing software, and from the long-
ingrained coding habits you find so comfortable.

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Try to put those feelings aside as you read through the advice in this book. Review it
as you would any other proposed code enhancement: analyze the arguments that are
made for these new practices; ask yourself whether you’ve ever fallen into the traps
they seek to avoid; consider whether the coding techniques suggested here might be
worth trying.
Just thinking about these issues—becoming conscious of the way you currently write
code—can be of enormous benefit, even if you don’t adopt a single one of the recom-
mendations that follow.

Contents of This Book

Chapter 1, Best Practices, explains why it might be worth reassessing your current
coding practices. It discusses how coding styles are evolved, and sets out three broad
criteria against which any existing or proposed coding practice can be assessed. The
chapter also explains why good coding habits matter and suggests how they can be
developed.
Chapter 2, Code Layout, tackles the many contentious issues of code layout. It sug-
gests how to set out block delimiters; how to visually distinguish built-ins and key-
words from subroutines and variables; where to place operators, terminators,
delimiters, and other punctuation; how to improve readability by the consistent use
of whitespace; the optimal width for code lines and block indents; how to set out
lists of values; and where to break long expressions. It concludes by recommending a
convenient tool that automates most of these layout tasks.
Chapter 3, Naming Conventions, presents a series of guidelines that can help you
choose more descriptive names for variables, subroutines, and namespaces. It also
demonstrates how the various components of a consistent naming scheme can work
together to improve the overall maintainability of code, both by making it more read-
able and by reducing the need for deobfuscatory comments.
Chapter 4, Values and Expressions, provides a simple set of rules that can help you
avoid common pitfalls when creating character strings, numbers, and lists. Topics
include how to avoid unintended variable interpolation (and non-interpolation), reli-
able and readable approaches to nonprintable characters, defining constants, avoid-
ing barewords, and taming heredocs, commas, long numbers, and lists.
Chapter 5, Variables, explores a robust approach to using variables. It explains the
inherent drawbacks of package or punctuation variables, suggesting safer alterna-
tives where possible, and safer practices where there are no alternatives. The second
half of the chapter presents several efficient and maintainable techniques of handling
data in arrays and hashes using the “container slicing” mechanism.
Chapter 6, Control Structures, examines Perl’s rich variety of control structures,
encouraging the use of those that are easier to maintain, less error-prone, or more

xvi | Preface

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efficient. The chapter provides a set of simple guidelines for deciding which of for,
while, or map is most appropriate for a given task. The effective use of iterator vari-
ables is also discussed, including the common case of needing to iterate hash entries
by key and value simultaneously.
Chapter 7, Documentation, suggests a series of techniques that can make document-
ing your code less tedious, and therefore more likely. It advocates a template-based
approach to both user and technical documentation, and discusses when, where, and
how to write useful and accurate comments.
Chapter 8, Built-in Functions, discusses better ways of using some of Perl’s most pop-
ular built-in functions, including sort, reverse, scalar, eval, unpack, split, substr,
values, select, sleep, map, and grep. It also summarizes the many other useful “non-
built-in” builtins provided by two modules from the standard Perl distribution and
one from CPAN.
Chapter 9, Subroutines, describes efficient and maintainable ways to write subrou-
tines in Perl, including the use of positional, named, and optional arguments, argu-
ment validation and defaults, safe calling and return conventions, predictable return
values in various contexts, and why subroutine prototypes and implicit returns
should be avoided.
Chapter 10, I/O, explains how to open and close files reliably, when to use line-based
input, how to correctly detect interactive applications, the importance of prompting,
and how best to provide feedback to users during long non-interactive tasks.
Chapter 11, References, offers advice on demystifying Perl’s many dereferencing syn-
taxes, discusses why symbolic references create more problems than they solve, and
recommends ways to prevent cyclic reference chains from causing memory leaks.
Chapter 12, Regular Expressions, presents guidelines for using regular expressions. It
recommends the use of extended formatting, suggests a simple but unusual fix for
Perl’s confusing “single-line” and “multiline” matching modes, warns of the perils of
matching whitespace too precisely, shows how to avoid using the error-prone
numeric variables, presents a robust approach to building complex regexes that are
still maintainable, gives several hints on optimizing slow matches, and concludes by
explaining when not to use regular expressions.
Chapter 13, Error Handling, advocates a coherent exception-based approach to error
handling, and explains why exceptions are preferable to special return values or
flags. It also recommends the use of exception objects, and explores in detail how
they can be declared, created, thrown, caught, and handled.
Chapter 14, Command-Line Processing, addresses the design and implementation of
command-line interfaces, both for individual programs and for application suites. It
recommends several modules that can make your command-line interfaces more
consistent and predictable, and at the same time can considerably reduce the effort
required to implement those interfaces.

Preface | xvii

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Chapter 15, Objects, and Chapter 16, Class Hierarchies, offer a robust and efficient
approach to creating objects and class hierarchies in Perl. This approach provides fully
encapsulated objects with no performance penalty, and supports single and multiple
inheritance without the usual problems of attribute collision, incomplete initialization,
partial destruction, or incorrect method autoloading. Chapter 16 also introduces a new
module that allows these robust and efficient classes to be built semi-automatically.
Chapter 17, Modules, looks at non-object-oriented modules, exploring the best ways
to create them, design their interfaces, declare and check their version numbers, and
refactor existing code into them. This chapter also discusses the many existing mod-
ules that are freely available as part of the Perl standard library and on CPAN.
Chapter 18, Testing and Debugging, encourages the use of testing, advocating test-
driven design and development using the core Test:: modules. It also offers tips on
effective debugging techniques, including a description of various modules and other
free tools that can make debugging easier.
Chapter 19, Miscellanea, offers several additional guidelines on miscellaneous topics
such as revision control, interfacing to code written in other languages, processing
configuration files, text formatting, tied variables, benchmarking and profiling your
code, caching techniques, and some general advice on refactoring.
Appendix A, Essential Perl Best Practices, summarizes the 30 most important guide-
lines in the book in three one-page lists. Appendix B, Perl Best Practices, lists all 256
guidelines, with cross-references to their chapters and locations. Appendix C, Editor
Configurations, provides some useful configuration options for the Vim, Vile, Emacs,
TextWrangler, and BBEdit text editors. Appendix D, Recommended Modules and
Utilities, lists and cross-references the various modules recommended throughout the
book, and provides a brief summary of their most useful subroutines. Appendix E
offers a short bibliography.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in the text of this book:
Italic
Indicates emphasis, new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, paths, and
Unix utilities.
Constant-width regular
Indicates commands, variables, attributes, functions, classes, namespaces, meth-
ods, modules, values, the contents of files, the output from commands, and code
examples that break recommended practices.
Constant-width bold
Indicates commands and other text that should be typed literally by the user,
and code examples that demonstrate recommended practices.

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Another Random Scribd Document
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discovered that the $1,700 draft had been raised from $17. The
other draft was also shown to have been raised from $34. Search
was made for Watson, but- he had flown, leaving no trace.
Descriptions of the swindler and his operations were immediately
scattered through the country. A New York detective, seeing the
description, immediately associated the criminal with the well known
professional " Al " Wilson. Wilson was arrested and held until some
of the bank officers from Buffalo arrived to identify him. They were
accompanied by Joseph Short, a boy whom Watson employed in his
office. The latter immediately identified the swindler.
Notwithstanding Wilson's protestations that he was not the man and
had not been out of New York in six months, he was taken to
Buffalo, indicted and held for trial. The trial took place on February
6, 1883, and the court room was crowded. The prisoner, who is a
bright, good-looking fellow, appeared sanguine of acquittal, which
feeling was shared by his counsel. The bank officials were positive
that Wilson was the
 282 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. man, but
their testimony was exceedingly conflicting. The office boy swore
positively that Wilson and Watson were identical. The Maverick
National Bank of Boston, learning of the arrest, sent a clerk, Henry
A. Lowell, to ascertain whether the accused was the individual who
swindled its institution of nearly $5,000 under like circumstances a
short time before. Lowell identified the prisoner, and swore that he
operated in Boston under the name of Whittemore. The defense
produced a number of witnesses from New York, who swore that
Wilson was in the metropolis when the crime was committed.
Detectives from New York testified that Wilson was a professional
thief, and had been so for years. Certain witnesses swore that the
prisoner had worn a beard during November, and others swore that
he wore only a mustache. The testimony being so conflicting, public
interest was excited as to the result. The judge's charge was against
the prisoner, and the jury retired at noon, returning at 3:30 p. M., on
February 7, 1883, with a verdict of guilty. Watson, who had looked
for an acquittal, was surprised, but maintained his composure.
Before the sentence was passed he made an eloquent appeal for
leniency on the part of the court. He said that he had a wife and
mother, who were left penniless. Rising to his full height, he denied
that he was a professional thief and said that his innocence would
be proved some day. He requested that he might be sent to Sing
Sing instead of Auburn, which request was denied. The spectators in
court were unanimously of the opinion that Watson is the coolest
rascal ever seen. Sondheim's Boston operations were as follows:
Some time in August, 1882, under the name of Whittemore, he went
into the Maverick National Bank and deposited the sum of $2,000,
announcing his determination to carry on business at the bank. The
following day he entered the bank, bringing with him a boy whom he
introduced as a messenger, and who, so he said, would transact his
business for him. He then began to draw against the deposit until it
was almost gone, when he reappeared and deposited a check for
$5,000. The next day the boy also reappeared and drew one-half of
the $5,000 deposited, and finished on the following day with
drawing the entire deposit, minus about $17. Whittemore, after
making a similar attempt upon another banking house in Boston,
took his departure for Portland, Me., where he also tried to victimize
a banking institution. He then went to Buffalo, where he carried on
the operations for which he was found guilty, as above stated. His
sentence will expire September 7, 1886. Wise's picture is a pretty
good one, taken in April, 1877. 204 LOUIS BROWN, alias FRENCH
LOUIE. BURGLAR, TOOL-MAKER AND KEY-FITTER. DESCRIPTION.
Fifty-nine years old in 1886. Born in France. Married. Machinist. Slim
build. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, about 145 pounds. Gray hair,
very thin ; hazel
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. 283 eyes, fair
complexion. Large nose. Thin face. Small mole near right eye. Wife's
name, Annie L. Wolf. RECORD. Brown, or French Louie, the name he
is best known by, is one of the most expert burglars in America. His
particular line is the manufacture of burglars' tools and making false
keys from impressions in wax. He seldom takes a hand in a burglary,
unless it is a large one. He generally paves the way for the
operations of confederates, and works from 6 a. m. to 8 a. m. in the
morning, when his operations can generally be carried on with
impunity, as any person seeing him at that hour would fancy that he
was simply opening the store for the day's business. French Louie
has spent at least twenty years in State prison in America, two-thirds
of it in Sing Sing prison. New York. Louie was arrested in New York
City on July 15, 1877, in the act of committing a burglary at Nos. 27
and 29 White Street. He was convicted and sentenced to three years
and three months in State prison at Sing Sing, N. Y., on August 16,
1877. He escaped from Sing Sing on July 16, 1878, and was re-
arrested in Philadelphia, Pa., on February 18, 1879, ^'^^ returned
to Sing Sing prison to serve out his unexpired time. He was arrested
again in New York City, on August 27, 1881, for tampering with the
padlock on the store of E. H. Gato & Co., No. 52 Beaver Street.
There was $50,000 worth of imported cigars in the store at the time.
Louie pleaded guilty of an attempt at burglary, and was sentenced to
two years and six months in State prison, on September 12, 1881,
by Recorder Smyth, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City.
His time expired on October 12, 1883. French Louie was arrested
again, under the name of John Yole, in Hoboken, N. J., on March 18,
1886, and sentenced to ninety days under the Disorderly Act. He
had some tools and keys in his possession when arrested. His case
was referred to the Grand Jury, which body failed to indict him.
Brown's picture is an excellent one, taken in Philadelphia, Pa.
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. 285 SEVERAL
NOTABLE FORGERS. WHILE the records given in the preceding
pages are those of the professional forgers of to-day, a few of the
men who figured prominently in criminal proceedings in the past
cannot be left unnoticed. Several of these have been lost sight of for
years, and some are perhaps dead, but as their exploits shed light
upon crimes of the past and point to a moral, their careers are
certainly worthy of mention here. Walter G. Patterson was a quarter
of a century ago classed as an expert forger. His first crime of note
was on June i, 1861, when he succeeded in cashing at the Pacific
National Bank of New York a check for $1,075. ^^ was made
payable to the Hon. Simeon Draper, Commissioner of Charities and
Corrections, and bore the forged signature of Henry Cam The forger
was run down, but he was afterwards released on bail, which he
forfeited and fled from the city. He was recaptured in June, 1865,
and when called for trial pleaded guilty. Recorder Hoffman, before
whom Patterson was arraigned, after the prisoner's confession of
guilt, and upon a promise to reform, suspended sentence. In the
August following the forger was again arrested upon the old charge,
and the Recorder then sentenced him to five years in Sing Sing
prison. Previous to his being brought up for the Pacific Bank forgery,
Patterson was living with a woman named Ryan at Collins's Hotel, at
the foot of Canal Street. The pair occupied costly apartments at the
hotel, were spending money freely, and it was suspected that the
self-confessed forger was concerned in the passing of several other
checks, although it was impossible to fasten the crimes legally upon
him. Vermillyea & Co., bankers of this city, in February, 1870, gave a
certified check for $156, payable at the Bank of Commerce, to a
stranger who had had a small business transaction with them. The
draft was afterwards "raised" to $16,000, and deposited with the
Mechanics' Banking Association for collection. The Bank of
Commerce paid the check on their own certification. This led to a
long litigation, which resulted in a verdict for the Bank of Commerce,
the courts holding that it was only responsible for the original
amount of the certification of the check. It was well known that
Walter G. Patterson and Spence Pettis were the men who secured
the large sum of money upon the raised paper. Pettis was an expert
in the use of chemicals, and it was claimed that he altered the
figures upon the check. When the forgery was discovered Patterson
had disappeared. Pettis was arrested, however, but was afterwards
released for want of evidence. When the case fell through the
prisoner was sent to Boston, Mass., to answer for a forgery which he
had
 286 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. committed
there. Pettis was convicted of the latter offense, and while serving
his sentence in the Charlestown State prison the convict hanged
himself to the grating of his cell door. Thus ended the career of a
most notorious criminal. John Ross, while plotting several gigantic
schemes in 1866, lived in princely style at the Metropolitan Hotel. He
ran an office in Exchange Place for two months, and during that
period had large transactions with, brokers, buying and selling gold.
In that way he secured their confidence. This obtained, he bought
gold to the amount of $1,000,000, and gave his own certified checks
in payment. The checks were worthless. A few days previous to the
stupendous transaction in gold, Ross employed Garten & Co., of
Broad Street, to buy for him a number of Western railroad bonds, for
which he paid in good money. On the day of his disappearance Ross
hypothecated for a loan of $17,000 from the bankers a bundle of
bonds supposed to be the identical ones they had purchased for
him. When, however, his forgeries became known, Garten & Co.
discovered that the bonds on which they had advanced money to
Ross were counterfeits. x^fter plundering right and left, Ross
boarded a steamer for South America, leaving the vessel at
Pernambuco, Brazil. He was tracked to Bahia and Rio Janeiro, and at
the latter place all trace of the fugitive was lost. John Henry
Livingston, alias Lewis, alias Matthews, alias De Peyster, on
December 3, 1867, in the garb of an express messenger, with the
words "American Express Co." upon a plate on the front of his cap,
appeared at the National City Bank. From a large leather wallet the
spurious messenger took a check drawn to the order of Henry Keep,
President of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, and
signed " C. Vanderbilt." The check also bore the endorsement, "
American Express — collect and deliver at Albany — Henry Keep."
Livingston presented the forged draft to Mr. Work, the paying teller,
and requested that bills of a certain denomination be used in making
up the package, saying that he would return in a few minutes,
having another errand close by. On his return to the bank Livingston
was handed the package, containing $75,000, the amount called for
by the fraudulent check. With the money he fled to the West, where
he purchased a farm and engaged in stock raising. He was captured
there a year or so afterwards. There was a peculiar and interesting
incident in connection with the search for the forger. The features
and manners of Livingston were so impressed upon Mr. Work's mind,
and his recollection of the entire transaction was so clear that it
enabled him to draw a pen and ink sketch of the "layer down." The
portrait revealed Livingston's identity and led to his arrest. The
prisoner, when brought to trial, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to
four years and nine months' imprisonment. His farm and stock were
confiscated, and the proceeds of the sale given to the bank he had
duped. Charles B. Orvis was in 1873 the proprietor of the City Hotel,
and the place was then the rendezvous of the gang of forgers of
which Roberts and Gleason were the leading spirits. The hotel
keeper had long been a shady character. He was originally a
"coniacker" (dealer in counterfeit money), and was first arrested at
Cleveland, Ohio,
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. 287 with a
confederate named Webster for passing forged bank-bills. They were
convicted and sentenced to three and a half years each in the
Columbus Penitentiary, and they served their full terms. Orvis, in
June, 1873, while we was still running the hotel, had several
financial transactions with the banking firm of George B. Ripley, at
No. 66 Broadway. He was simply paving the way for the successful
culmination of a well planned scheme. When he had at last
established confidence and made his credit good, Orvis one day
succeeded in borrowing from the firm $20,000 upon some forged
bonds. Since then he has been arrested several times for defrauding
various banking firms, and at present there are indictments against
him on file in the District Attorney's office. The forger's audacity was
most surprising. The New York Sun and Times, several years ago,
exposed his character, and Orvis afterwards began suits against the
newspapers for showing him up. The suits, of course, collapsed
when it was proven that Orvis was really a dangerous criminal.
George B. Watson was discharged from State prison in 1873, having
completed a term of five years' imprisonment for burglary. Upon his
return to the city the ex-convict married a very respectable young
woman, and with his innocent bride went to live in a fashionable
apartment house on Fifty-fourth Street, near Broadway. He had not
been out of prison long before he entered into co-partnership with a
forger, who took him in training. After the necessary education
Watson started out as a fullfledged "scratcher." At the banking office
of Samuel White & Co., on Wall Street, several years since, he
disposed of some Government bond coupons, for which he received
a due-bill calling for the payment of $125. Instead of presenting the
latter to the cashier immediately, Watson waited until lunch-time,
and then presented the claim. In the meantime he had raised the
amount which the due-bill called for to $12,000, and just as the
money was being handed to him the forgery was detected. Watson,
who had been on the alert, fled from the office and escaped. When
the gigantic fraudulent scheme to flood the market with forged New
York, Buffalo and Erie Railroad bonds became known, Watson, who
was concerned in the great conspiracy, fled to Europe. Upon his
return, several years later, he was arrested. He was then a complete
wreck from dissipation, and had to be assisted into the court room.
His condition was so pitiful that the complainant asked for the
discharge of the prisoner on his own recognizance. Watson was
thereupon released, but he rallied, and a few months later on he
was again arrested and brought up for a small forgery. Upon his
conviction he was sentenced to the penitentiary, where he died
before his term expired. Charles R. Beckwith was arrested January i,
1876, for robbing his employer, B. T. Babbitt, the soap manufacturer,
out of $205,645 by means of forged receipts. Beckwith had been
stealing for years before it was suspected that the funds of the firm
were being made away with. He was sentenced to ten years'
imprisonment. Beckwith is at present living in Canada.
 288 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. Thomas R.
Lewis, the accomplice of Beckwith, who also realized about $200,000
by making false entries in Mr. Babbitt's books, fled to Europe when
the fraud was discovered. He was captured in London, England, and
brought back. Upon his return to this city Lewis made restitution as
far as he was able, returning altogether property worth $58,000. He
was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment.
Lewis died a few years since in Switzerland. J. Lloyd Haigh for many
years held an exalted position in society, but like other good men he
wandered from the path of rectitude, thereby destroying his good
name and casting a dark shadow over that of his family. In 1879 ^^
^^^ arrested and accused of hypothecating forged paper. He was
indicted and convicted of forgery in the third degree, and on August
8, 1880, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Lewis M. Van
Eten, on March i, 1871, was paid $19,000 by the Park National Bank
on a check purporting to have been drawn by Hall, Garten & Co.,
brokers, of No. 30 Broad Street, and certified by the Continental
Bank. Upon the discovery of the forgery the Continental Bank
refunded the Park Bank the amount they had paid on the check.
After the forgery Van Eten disappeared, and remained away for
some time. On- his return to New York he was arrested, and upon
conviction was sentenced to a term of ten years' imprisonment in
Sing Sing. He had not been long in prison before he was pardoned,
but upon his release he was re-arrested for a forgery committed at
San Francisco, Cal. While on the way to that place for trial. Van Eten
committed suicide by swallowing a dose of laudanum, which he had
kept concealed upon his person. Levi Cole, a man with innumerable
aliases, figured as a burglar, forger and dealer in counterfeit money
for many years. His first start in crime was handling spurious bank-
notes. When the State banks went out of existence Cole turned
burglar, and made a specialty of robbing the safes of country banks.
His jimmies and other tools he expressed from place to place in a
sole-leather gun-case. He was in the habit of calling at the express
office with a game-bag over his shoulder and a cartridge belt around
his waist. Cole would pass the day in the woods, and in the night the
country bank would be robbed. He served two terms for burglary,
and at the expiration of the second sentence went direct from prison
to a Western city, where his brother kept a hotel. Cole demanded
assistance, but it was refused, because, under promises of
reformation, he had before deceived his brother. Upon the request
being refused, the burglar and forger went to one of the rooms up-
stairs and blew his brains out with a revolver. George Engles, the
two Bidwells, and McDonald, with the intention of carrying out
gigantic forgeries on an elaborate scale, went to England, and in
1871 commenced operations in Liverpool, where they obtained
about ;^6,ooo. With this capital they proceeded to London, and
opened a banking and commission house for the discounting and
shaving of commercial paper. McDonald organized the firm under the
name of "Warner & Co." He opened an account with one of the
leading London banks, and
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. 289 bona fide
transactions were conducted for some time. After gaining the
confidence of the bank's officers, they commenced to discount the
paper of Warner & Co., which had been presented for discount by
their customers, some of the leading merchants of London. Previous
to the consummation of the scheme, George McDonald and one of
the Bidwells became infatuated with two women with whom they
lived. Engles objected to this, fearing that his companions would
reveal his secrets to their mistresses. McDonald and Bidwell were
then residing at St. John's Wood, Kensington, London. The men
refused to give up the women, and laughed at Engles, who
threatened to cut off business relations with them. After the gang
had realized about a quarter of a million pounds sterling Engles
became frightened when informed that the women knew all about
the scheme, and with his share of the plunder disappeared. When
McDonald and Bidwell undertook to continue the business they were
discovered, and the sequel shows that had it not been for the
women in whom they had so much confidence, they would have
escaped. In their recklessness the men presented one of the forged
notes which had not been dated. The clerk discovered the error, and
forwarded It to the firm by whom it was supposed to have been
issued. They pronounced it a forgery. One of the Bidwells fled to
Scotland, and was there arrested, and his brother was apprehended
in Havana, Cuba. McDonald endeavored to get clear of his mistress,
but could not. He induced her, however, to accept a passage ticket
from Liverpool to New York, telling her that he would join her at the
Northern Hotel before the steamer sailed. He did not attempt to
meet her, but took a train from London to Folkstone, crossed to
France, and took passage at Havre for this city. McDonald's mistress,
becoming enraged at her disappointment, and suspecting the route
her lover had taken to get away, betrayed him to the police. A
cablegram was sent to this city, and upon the arrival of the steamer
the fugitive forger was arrested on board the vessel in the lower bay.
After months of litigation McDonald was returned to England, where
he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Bidwell
brothers received like sentences. McDonald had just finished a
sentence of five years' imprisonment for a forgery which he had
committed upon Ball, Black & Co., the jewelers, when he set out
with Engles and the Bidwells for Europe to execute the scheme of
flooding the financial world with spurious Bank of England notes.
George Engles is dead, and for other mention of him see records of
George Wilkes and No. 18. Buchanan Cross was called " Colonel," on
account of his frequent appearance in a sort of military-cut suit,
which aided him many times in the laying down of forged paper. For
this class of crime he was sentenced to Sing Sing prison, and while
there he forged his own pardon and was liberated. Afterwards he
was arrested and tried for forging the Governor's signature. Cross
proved by the warden of the prison that it was impossible for him to
have committed the forgery, on account of his not being able to get
pen and ink. He was acquitted of the charge, but was detained to
serve out his unexpired term.
 290 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. After his
release Cross forged the name of Robert Bonner to a check for
$3,156, on the Nassau Bank, New York City, being assisted in the
crime by Charley Bishop. The latter went to the Ledger office and
subscribed for the paper, and gave his address as at East Orange, N.
J. Bishop gave a twenty dollar gold piece in payment for his
subscription, and asked that a check for the change be given him, as
he wished to send it to Orange. The request was complied with, and
thus the forgers obtained Mr. Bonner's signature. The check was
given to David Beech, alias Leach, who took it to Henry Siebert,
engraver, at No. 93 Fulton Street, and ordered a book of blank
checks, similar to the sample, to be printed for him. The blanks were
taken to " Colonel " Cross, and he made out the check in the name
of Robert Bonner. The money was obtained from the bank, and on
the following day the forgery was discovered. Beech's girl was first
arrested. She said that her lover had started for Boston the night
before, intending to sail for Europe that day. He was arrested by the
Boston police on the steamer just as the vessel was leaving the
dock. Beech was sentenced to five years' hard labor and Bishop to
three and a half years, on October 29, i860. Cross was arrested in
Canada, but for want of sufficient evidence he was discharged.
Charles Frederick Ulrich, a Prussian by birth, is one of the few
engravers able to cut a United States Treasury plate without any
assistance. He is the son of a jeweler and engraver of Dantzig,
Germany. Ulrich learned the first part of his trade at his father's
shop, and then finished at a regular establishment at Berlin, Prussia.
He came to this country in 1853, being then about twenty years old.
His career since has been a checkered one. Ulrich had been here but
a few years before he embarked freely in the counterfeiting
business, he doing all the engraving, which was a marvel of
exactness. Among the plates which he engraved prior to his first
conviction in 1868, were a $100 counterfeit on the Central National
Bank of New York, a $100 counterfeit of the First National Bank of
Boston, Mass., and a $100 counterfeit on the Ohio National Bank of
Cincinnati. He printed and disposed of, without a glimmer of
detection, all of these, and became quite wealthy, and then, in the
early part of 1867, settled himself in Cincinnati for a final effort. He
engaged a small house, and there began to engrave a counterfeit of
the $500 United States Treasury note. He was engaged upon the
plate when he was arrested, and sentenced to the Columbus, Ohio,
penitentiary for twelve years. Ulrich served eight years of his time in
the Ohio penitentiary, and in 1879, when arrested with Old Harry
Cole and Jacob Ott, he made a confession in which he revealed
some interesting information concerning counterfeiting. During the
course of his statement he said : "Counterfeits are usually of small
denominations, because there is more money in them for the
wholesale dealer. A large bill will soon be stamped as a counterfeit,
while the small ones can be changed from bank to bank, and people
are not so shy of them. After I came out of the Columbus, Ohio,
penitentiary, I started in the lithographing and engraving business in
Cincinnati, but failed. Then I went to Philadelphia and took a house
at the corner of Sixth and Cumberland streets. There I started to
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF A-M ERICA. 29 1 engrave
two $50 plates. They were counterfeits of the Central National Bank
of New York and the Third of Buffalo. Before they were finished I
moved to a place called Oak Lane, six miles from Philadelphia. When
these plates had been completed, I started on a $5 plate. In
October, 1877, I moved out to Sharon Hill, where another lot of fives
and fifties were printed. The latter were on the Tradesmen's Bank of
New York, and were sent to Europe. There were 2,000 fifties and
8,000 fives printed at Oak Lane, and 2,000 fifties and between
16,000 and 20,000 fives at Sharon Hill, in all nearly $350,000. There
was always a man with capital back of me. I know one of my
counterfeits just as well as a man would know his own handwriting."
The first time Ulrich was arrested was in this city. He was caught at
work upon a vignette for a counterfeit bank-bill, and upon conviction
was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in Sing Sing. The
counterfeiter only served three years of his term, when he was
pardoned by Governor Morgan. He had been out of prison but a
short time when he engraved the plate from which the Bank of
England notes were printed. So well were they executed that the
"water mark" was perfect. All these bills were received as genuine by
the Bank of England, and an unlimited number of the counterfeits
are believed to be still in circulation. Ulrich, before he became known
to the police, served for eighteen months in the British army. That
was during the Crimean war. He was, he claimed, enlisted in New
York by an English agent, sent to Boston, and from thence by
schooner to Halifax, Nova Scotia. As soon as his time was up he
returned to the United States and became a full-fledged
counterfeiter. He is now in Switzerland. For further mention of Ulrich
see record of George W. Wilkes. Thomas Ballard, for years known all
over the Union as the King of Counterfeiters, died while serving out
a thirty years' sentence in the penitentiary at Albany, N. Y. He was a
superior engraver, and the fine work on some of his bills was so
cleverly and artistically executed as to deceive even the banks and
the government. He was classed as a professional in 1865, and his
work was then exceedingly fine. Previous to his arrest in October,
1871, Ballard carried on his operations near Buffalo, N. Y., being
located in a lonely house on the outskirts of Beach Rock. He was
dogged about for months before he was finally traced to his lair. One
dark night his secret retreat was surrounded. As soon as Ballard
became aware of the trap that had been sprung on him he tried
hard to escape, but without avail. At his rendezvous a number of
dies and other untensils of the counterfeiter's art were captured,
including an admirably executed plate upon a Buffalo bank. Ballard
was duly tried, convicted, and sentenced to the long term in the
Albany penitentiary. While the counterfeiter was in prison he made
use of his spare time to plan and perfect a valuable invention for
registering the actual number of papers printed by any printing
press. He made several strenuous but fruitless efforts to invoke the
clemency of the law for a pardon or a partial remittance of his
sentence. William C. Oilman was not a professional criminal, still his
forgeries, when tTiey were discovered in the fall of 1877, created the
greatest excitement in Wall Street. He
 292 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. was an
insurance scrip broker, at No. 46 Pine Street, and as his connections
were very good indeed, his fall was thereby all the more deplorable.
Oilman raised scrip of the Atlantic Mutual and Commercial Mutual
Insurance Companies amounting to nearly $300,000, and his
forgeries existed for years without discovery. He speculated on false
capital, and each year his prospects of redeeming himself became
more and more hopeless. His distress became daily more and more
terrible, and these symptoms of trouble were obvious to his intimate
friends, while the causes were unknown. Oilman was indicted for
forgery in the third degree, the specific charge being for the forgery
of a $10,000 insurance scrip on the Atlantic and Mutual Insurance
Company, bearing date April 27, 1877, and the number 2,100. When
the prisoner was arraigned before Recorder Hackett, in the Court of
General Sessions, on October 12, 1877, one of the most affecting
scenes ever witnessed in a court room took place. Oilman pleaded
guilty to the charge, and, at the request of his counsel, the Court
afterwards permitted the prisoner to read a confession he had made
explaining the manner in which his. crime had been committed. The
insurance broker's confession was as follows : October 3, 1877. To
Rev. Dr. Houghton and My Dear Wife, Brothers and Sisters : It is
proper to state certain facts in explanation, not extenuation, of my
conduct. From the time I began business I had placed in my hands,
by friends trusting me implicitly, sums of money ranging from $100
to $20,000. These sums would often remain undisturbed for weeks
and months, and as I paid for the privilege, it was proper and was
understood that I employed them in business ; I never speculated in
stocks on margin, nor lost nor won money by any wager or game. I
did make investments in enterprises which promised well from time
to time, in good faith, and which turned out utterly bad. For this my
judgment isto be blamed. The possession of so much money and the
control of it gradually made me feel and act as if it were my own,
and encroachments upon it, whether from losses or expenses, which
began many years ago, came so gradually that I was scarcely
sensible of them, and, while I knew that I was running behind, I
could not bear to look the deficiency squarely in the face, but hoped
for better times. Times grew worse instead of better. The failure of
the Sun Insurance Company and the vicissitudes of the other
companies impaired the confidence of buyers in everything but
Atlantic, and competition for that the last few years has carried
prices so high as to leave no margin for profit, and has made the
commissions utterly inadequate to meet the scale of expenses on
which I was doing business and living. Consequently my business
was greatly restricted. The worse my affairs grew the more unwilling
I became to investigate them. My books and accounts, which had
been my pride, were neglected. I drifted hopelessly in a sea of
trouble, seizing every straw which seemed to give a little present
help, and in some cases I allowed my reputation to suffer by long
delay in making up accounts which were called for. This moral
weakness was quite inexcusable. How easy to say so now, but how
hard it seemed to do what I should years ago have done in reducing
expenses at home and in the office, and in resolutely closing
accounts which were a temptation to me, and which, if honestly
treated, must at that rate of interest have proved unprofitable. Prior
to the panic of 1873 I had made improper use of trust funds in my
hands under the pressure of declining business, and the troubles of
that year involved me in additional losses. After that time the
accounts in my hands began to be drawn on by the depositors more
freely than before, and not unfrequently I found myself sorely
pushed, but always managed to extricate myself without doing
anything criminal, though I niust confess the moral baseness of my
proceedings these many years. As nearly as I can remember I must
have put forth the first " raised " certificate not quite two years ago.
It was so easy to do it ! Yet what a struggle it cost me ! I have
suffered more all these months in thinking of my baseness in
abusing the confidence of my friends in No. 39 Pine Street, in the
two insurance companies and in the bank, every one of whom has
always treated me with the greatest kindness, than at the absolute
wickedness of these crimes.
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. 293 Blindly
hoping that the next step would extricate me, I plunged in deeper
and deeper. I hope I make it plain that my endeavor was to cover
the deficiencies of a term of years. It is impossible for me to state
without reference to memoranda, which' I have not by me, what
amounts are afloat, but I am confident that there is nothing but
what will be found at the American Exchange Bank, Union Insurance
Company, Commercial Insurance Company, Henry Talmadge & Co.'s,
and my friends will find the whole truth there. I have not sold any
fraudulent securities, but borrowed on them. It is proper for me to
say that I am alone responsible for every wrong act. No human
being would have had a suspicion of it, and I alone am to blame for
the false pride which has made me incur expenses at home and in
my business which could not lawfully be met. My wife never
persuaded me to any extravagance, and she would have accepted
any restraint I might have put upon her. In addition to these
fraudulent transactions other persons than those named must .suffer
to a considerable degree — chiefly my brothers and sisters —
probably to the extent of $75,000, and several other persons who
have had accounts with me for years. I cannot now state amounts of
these latter accounts approximately. To sum up briefly, I would say
that a declining business, bad investments, heavy expenses, both
business and domestic, and personal extravagance, have betrayed
me. No, I must be just with myself, and confess that I have
deliberately walked, in the clearest light and knowledge, in the face
of the best instruction, into this pit. Some may call it madness ; I call
it sin. Those who knew me in business relations alone may not be
aware of it, but every one who knows me personally will bear
witness that my intimate friends and associates are all with some of
the best and purest who ever lived. They know that I loved better to
give away money than to spend it for myself ; they know that my
thoughts and my interests were more with the various charitable
works with which it was my happiness to be connected than on
money getting, by right means or wrong. They will mourn with me
that I should have valued the good opinion of good men more than
a good conscience and my own self-respect. They will wonder how it
was possible for a man to so far deceive himself as to believe that
he really cared for and valued things that were true, honest, pure,
just, lovely and of good repute, while, beneath a smooth surface, his
heart was rotten and dishonest to the core. I suppose no one will be
much surprised that suicide has been much in my thoughts for many
years, and while I hoped that some change of fortune might avert
the impending disclosure, I have feared for some weeks that it might
be near at hand. I deliberated before this whether I should add sin
to sin, but had resolved to meet the crisis as soon as it should come
meekly and frankly. I have now but one desire, and that is to throw
all possible light on every dark corner of these transactions,
regardless of consequences personal to myself, and to aid in
distributing everything that remains to those who are entitled to it.
Then commending my wife and worse than fatherless children to
God, how gladly, if it be his will, will I do penance for my crime in
prison and pray for death whenever He pleases to send it — or,
hardest lot of all, if life be possible to one who has forfeited the
respect of every human being, I will try to live and to add not
another stain to the name of WILLIAM C. OILMAN. Nearly every eye
in the court room was moistened when the reading of the foregoing
touching appeal had ended. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the
stern Recorder as he proceeded to pass sentence. It was a moment
of painful suspense for all in the court. He said : " After the
representations which have been made and the statements which
have just been read in court, statements made by the accused to
those whom he loved dearest in life, I cannot be guided by my own
feelings in this matter. I cannot depend upon them, and I have one
of the greatest duties to perform that belong to any age. In view of
the enormity of the crime the prisoner has committed, while feelings
of the utmost sympathy were extended to his wife and family, I feel
it my duty to pronounce
 294 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. the sentence
of the Court, that the prisoner be confined in the State prison for the
term of five years at hard labor,'' Sad as was the scene in the court
room, there was another sadder still on December 3, 1879. ^^
occurred in the Yantic cemetery, near Norwichtown, Conn., when
Oilman, who had been pardoned by Governor Robinson, fresh from
Auburn prison, stood by the open grave of his wife. While in prison
his daughter had died, and he was released in time to attend the
funeral of his wife, whose heart had been broken with sorrow over
her husband's sin. Oilman's false step will stand forever as a warning
to others.
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS OF AMERICA. 295
INTERNATIONAL FORGERS. SECRET HISTORY OF THE WILKES,
HAMILTON, BECKER AND ENGLES GANG OF FORGERS.— THEIR
CHIEF'S CONFESSION. THERE was a lively sensation during the
Christmas holiday week, 1880, when brief cablegrams were received
in New York City announcing that a skillful and desperate gang of
American counterfeiters and forgers, with their wives, had been
arrested in Milan and Florence, Italy. The names of Willis and Burns
and Hamilton were given as those of the ringleaders, and it was said
that they had swindled, or tried to swindle, a large number of
bankers in Europe. While in prison one of the culprits, the leader and
arch conspirator, Henry W. Wilkes, alias Willis, was led to make a full
confession. It was reduced to writing before the United States
Consular representative. Colonel J. Schuyler Crosby, and filed among
the police archives, only a brief reference to it being permitted to go
to the press. The story, which is here given in full, is one of the most
extraordinary chapters of crime ever printed. Henry Wade Wilkes,
alias George Wilkes, alias Willis, the chief of the only international
band of bond forgers and counterfeiters ever organized, with his
boon companion, the notorious "Pete" Burns, alias James Joy Julius,
fell into the hands of the Italian criminal authorities at Florence on
Christmas Day, 1880, just after "Shell" Hamilton, alias Colbert, had
been apprehended at Milan. Wilkes was, after several months,
quietly released, and he returned to New York. Burns while in prison
became aware for the first time of Wilkes's duplicity in making a
confession, and knowing that he had been betrayed, choked himself
to death with a prayer-book. His three widows are at present
engaged in a litigation over his estate, which is said to be worth
about $400,000. This money was Burns's share of the profits of the
operations of the gang of which he was one of the leading spirits
and Wilkes was the acknowledged chief. The band was composed of
none but professional forgers, counterfeiters, and first-class "check
raisers," and they operated with wonderful success in almost every
city of North. America and Europe. They were not concerned in any
paltry schemes, but only took part in well planned and gigantic plots.
They realized altogether by their forgeries perhaps millions, and the
lion's share of their plunder was afterwards squandered at the
gaming table. The members of the international gang made New
York, London and Paris in turn their headquarters, and flooded the
two continents with their worthless bonds and securities.
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