Excessive Bail Or Typical?

[How Brown]

Tumbelty's bail was set at 500 Pounds on December 16th ( My birthday...),1888 by Magistrate James L. Hanney.

Anyone feel this bail was excessive? I'll spend some time looking for other instances of bails of that degree in similar gross indecency cases tonight....

[John Savage]

Hi Howard,

I suppose bail has to be set at a high enough level to ensure that the defendant returns to court, and given that Tumblety was reasonably well off and an alien who could easliy abscond, I presume that is why Mr. Hanney settled at that figure.

Rgds
John

[How Brown]

Thanks for that John...
I got the word from Tim Riordan that the bail for Tumbelty was 300 pounds, not 500.

Nina also re-read some of the Cleveland Street Scandal book we have and it mentioned a 300 pound bail in one instance as well.

Your point is taken about absconding.

By the way...since I'm lazy...who actually bailed Tumbelty out?

[Tim Riordan]

I know of two gross indecency cases in London in the 1885-1890 period where the amount of bail was mentioned. Both were Englishmen. In one case the bail was 200 piunds and in the other it was 500. Tumblety's bail is within the range.

As yet, no one has identified the men who paid the bail. I do not know and Stewart has told me that he does not either.

[Joe Chetcuti]

Vivien Allen mentioned in her book that Tumblety's bail money was wired from America to England. Since the 'doctor' was in jail at the time, I figured that one of the two men who bailed out Tumblety might have been given the authority to collect the money in London from the financial wire service. So a few years ago I checked with Western Union. They were friendly folks, and they even put me in touch with their senior archivist. But we couldn't come up with anything.

I don't know who those two guys were either. Nor do I know how Vivien Allen arrived at the conclusion that the money was wired from America.

[Stan Russo]

Joe,

I mention these two in my Tumblety article - no one has ever identified who these two men were and I believe that is as important a piece in Tumblety's involvement as any.

Which book are you referring to and who is Vivien Allen?

[How Brown]

Its a little strange that anyone outside of a family member would bail someone out for an offense such as that,in my view. Maybe we ought to discuss the factors involved here. Who wants to be known as someone who helped a guy who was charged with violating those statutes?

1. Did Tumbelty have some collateral that the two took control of after this bailout? It had to be of more value than the 300 pounds ( Considering the possible interest that would be concomitant to the money supplied).

2. What percentage of the 300 pounds would have to be deposited in London in 1888? I know that if you pay 10 percent of the bail figure over here, you are able to walk away until the court date....but wonder if the entire 300 pounds had to be put up.

Stan Russo is right on the money here when he states that the identity of these two men who bailed FT out might be or is important to our study of Tumbelty.

[SirRobertAnderson]

Which book are you referring to

http://books.google.com/books?id=v23JW3nSe60C&pg=RA1-PA40&lpg=RA1-PA40&dq=Vivien+Allen+tumblety&source=bl&ots=eX2_iXTK8r&sig=wnSxupmrmDMf3AEDB7koO044ndU&hl=en&ei=CBYDStWkCsHflQfDsP3zBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPP1,M1

[Chris G.]

http://books.google.com/books?id=v23JW3nSe60C&pg=RA1-PA40&lpg=RA1-PA40&dq=Vivien+Allen+tumblety&source=bl&ots=eX2_iXTK8r&sig=wnSxupmrmDMf3AEDB7koO044ndU&hl=en&ei=CBYDStWkCsHflQfDsP3zBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPP1,M1

That is, Hall Caine: Portrait of a Victorian Romancer by Vivien Allen - 1997. I wonder if there could be any suspicion that journalist and novelist Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine, CH, KBE (1853–1931) (http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/people/writers/thc.htm), could have helped his old friend Tumblety with the bail money? It would seem the two mainly knew each other and were lovers in the 1870's when Caine was a journalist in Liverpool and Tumblety set up a practice in the city but conceivably they remained in touch.

Chris

[Joe Chetcuti]

Yes, Vivien Allen's biography on Caine was the book I had in mind.

On Dec 1st, The NY World's London Bureau cabled out this information about the two men who bailed Tumblety:

"...Dr. Tumblety was committed for trial and liberated on bail, two gentlemen coming forward to act as bondsmen in the amount of $1,500. On being hunted up by the police today, they asserted they had only known the doctor for a few days previous to his arrest."

This story tells us that somebody associated with The NY World's London Bureau had established a good line of communication with the English police. I have already made my thoughts known on who that London newsman probably was.

What I found interesting about this report was that the police tracked down the two bondsmen a full week after the La Bretagne had sailed away. I wonder if on Nov 16th, Tumblety gave these two bondsmen some extra money and told them to take a two-week vacation somewhere away from London.

We know so little about these two gentlemen that we can probably speculate about them for hours. I remember Roger telling me once that he thought they were probably just a couple of poor blokes.

[How Brown]

Thank you C.G. and Joe for the previous posts.

I am a little confused here and perhaps someone can un-confuse me....

First of all, if we know of the November 20th hearing and the bail amount set by Judge Hannay,why aren't the names of these two bondsmen on a document relative to the hearing?

In Britain in 1888...was it necessary for someone to act as bondsman/bondsmen for someone who had to post bail? Because, if thats so....

.........why did it require TWO bondsmen if Tumbelty had his own cash in the instance that it was necessary for someone else besides the defendant to place the bond in his name?

...I don't understand why two were required unless Tumbelty didn't have the money and had to borrow the moolah from these two gents.

Back to you folks.