MAN OF MANY MARRIAGES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3422, 13 January 1912, Page 3

MAN OF MANY MARRIAGES.

REMARK-ABLE CAREER OF FRA CD A remarkable career of crime was disclosed at the Maidstone Assizes, when Coorge Stanley Crawley, alias Stanley Cordon. 42, pleaded guilty to obtaining by fraud money from three residents of AVhitstable. Inspector Haigh, of the Metropolitan police, said the prisoner’s real name was George Snowden. Early in Ids eaieer he twice deserted from the armv and was sentenced by court-m irtial to six months’ hard labor and discharged from the army with ignominy. In 189 lie married at Camberwell a woman whose present whereabouts could not be ascertained. In 1597, continued the inspector, the prisoner made the acquaintance at St. Leonards of another woman, to whom he represented himself as George Hastings-. He courted this woman and married her in 1898 at Harlesden. The prisoner subsequently hired a theatre at Ramsgate for eight weeks, said the witness, passing himself off as Air George Dixon Hargreaves, and engaged artistes to perform. He did not pay any salaries, and quitted the town, leaving the company stranded. He was arrested for fraud and sentenced to eighteen months’ lard labor, his previous history not then having been* discovered. After his liberation lie assumed the name of Stanley Cuitis, and in 1902, at Torquay, lie posed as a proprietor of theatrical companies. ' AVTDOAV LEFT DESTITUTE. About tliis time, the officer eon tinned, the prisoner made the icqu-unt-anee of a widow wlm possessed a ct>nsideiable interest in the estate of l ei late husband. The prisoner noenme engaged to her, representing imrself as a bachelor. In March, 1902, lie went through the form of marriage uiih the widow at Bath. The day foil iwi.ig tlie marriage she gave him toOO. He obtained other money from her, and to meet his demands she disposed of her linen, plate, pictures and jewellery. The prisoner never supported J or, said the*inspector, and six months after her marriage she was destitute ami was obliged to enter Marvlebone workhouse. She was now obtaining her living as a lady’s help. The prisoner was eventually again arrested on a charge of fraud and bigamy, while lie was arranging a marriage with a young, girl, and sentenced on two counts to three years’ and five years’ penal servitude. His Lordship sentenced the prisoner to four years’ servitude, in addition to the two" years of his previously unexpirod sentence.