Abstract
This study analyses fraudsters and their motives in New Zealand’s post-colonial times, using Papers Past, from 1840 to 1939. The aim is to understand the past societal context concerning fraud crimes. The historical analysis reveals that fraud was reported as early as 1840, and since then, reports of fraud have grown rapidly. False pretences and representation were the most common types of fraud, and there was a greater proportion of male than female perpetrators. Female criminality was the main subject of discussion during the period studied, and often biased perceptions regarding how typical women should behave were expressed. The motives of perpetrators of fraud were mainly to maintain cohesion for the family. Overall, the motivations for committing fraud indicated social struggles rather than greed. There is also some evidence for how fraudsters from privileged social classes received lighter sentencing regardless of the grave nature of the offence.
Introduction
Voluminous historical archives of past crimes offer an evidentiary basis for the contemplation and analysis of how and why fraud is perpetrated in society and such an analysis would facilitate understanding the past societal context. Ultimately, we want to understand why actors in history acted as they did (Fleischman et al., 1996). Since human experience must be understood within its own context (Gomes et al., 2011), history provides a unique gateway for knowing or learning about our common humanity (Warren, 1961). History speaks in a meaningful way to the quandaries of the present (Sy and Tinker, 2005: 63).
There are two main contributions of this article. First, this study documents reported fraudulent activities for a century, from 1840 to 1939, in New Zealand. Second, this study uses newspapers that have been digitised by the National Library of New Zealand. The library describes its digitised collections, Past Papers, as a goldmine of historical information, with millions of pages of digitised historical content from all over New Zealand (National Library of New Zealand, 2019). Together, they constitute valuable historical evidence, which can be used to contextualise reported fraud crimes.
Early writings on the state of crime in New Zealand implicitly or explicitly depicted the country as a crimeless society (Evening Post, 1879; Saunders, 1868), including during the gold rushes in the 1860s (Adam, 1876). Even the premier, Robert Stout, concluded that the New Zealand people were less criminal (Stout, 1886). For example, in Otago, when Mr Justice Stephen was appointed in 1850 to administer law, he had nothing to do for 18 months (Reeves, 1956: 183). The reasons could be that the people sent out by the New Zealand Company were carefully selected (Rice, 2012; Temple, 2002), wages were better than what they could earn from stealing (Fuller, 1859: 242), and there were bountiful natural resources and rapid economic progress (Bathgate, 1884).
However, the later part of the colonial period saw a marked change in this state of a crimeless society. Between 1850 and 1920, some of the distinct factors that characterised lawlessness in New Zealand were mainly socio-economic structures and demographic imbalances (Fairburn, 1989; Godfrey and Dunstall, 2005). The increase in crime waves and violence demanded the maintenance of law, order and justice. The British Government resorted to the appointment of a representative, Captain William Hobson, to negotiate the sovereignty of New Zealand. There was an unparalleled sense of urgency since the French were showing a keen interest in New Zealand; therefore, swift action from the British Crown was required. In June 1838, a bill declaring New Zealand a British colony was brought into the House of Commons after successful experiments in South Australia and Canada (Saunders, 1896: 112–113).
The 1860s were a turbulent decade with much of the North Island of New Zealand ravaged by war and conflicts over land sales between British settlers and Māori. By 1872, vast areas of land were confiscated in Taranaki, Waikato, the Bay of Plenty and Hawke’s Bay (Temple, 2008). New Zealand Company was formed in the 1830s by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who was known for his systematic colonisation theories and dishonest land purchases from the Māori. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on 6 February 1840 and the English version transferred sovereignty from the Māori to the British Crown, and in the treaty, the Māori were prohibited from selling land to anyone but the government and its agents. Nevertheless, Wakefield was seen as the chief villain of Māori loss of land and rights (Temple, 2002). 1
The infant colony had a great need for infrastructure (Reserve Bank of New Zealand, 2007: 5). In the 1860s, new roads and bridges were constructed throughout the country. The construction of railways was the driving force of the Industrial Revolution in New Zealand (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2018b), with the province of Canterbury being the most successful. Canterbury’s Superintendent, Mr W Sefton Moorhouse, engaged Messrs. Holmes & Co. from Melbourne to construct a railway line between Lyttelton and Christchurch (Saunders, 1896). The influx of migrant workers into New Zealand for the construction of railways and other infrastructure works was inevitable. By the mid-1870s, the government assisted 100,000 migrants, the great majority of them British and Irish, which caused the European population to soar from 256,000 in 1871 to 490,000 in 1881 (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2018c). However, these assisted passages from Britain were without any work obligations, resulting in many immigrants turning to farming, urban jobs or gold prospecting (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2018e). During this period, crime and disorder increased due to the struggle to cope with rapid population growth and rudimentary social structures (Fairburn, 1989; Godfrey and Dunstall, 2005).
In terms of research, historical colonial studies of New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific have largely focused on cultures (Benton, 2002; Howe, 2000) and the implications of colonialism (Coleborne, 2005; Creed and Hoorn, 2001; Denoon et al., 2000). Furthermore, much of the crime-related research is Anglocentric, centring on England and the United States (Pratt, 2005; Robb, 1992). This emphasis has notably left a large gap in the literature for New Zealand stories to be told. The nineteenth century is one of the most crucial periods yet to be studied (Godfrey and Locker, 2001). During this period, in England the financial dealings were becoming more complex, and managers increasingly relied on employees to handle money and financial dealings (Shore, 2015). The complexity of financial dealings created ample opportunity for dishonesty since the law and accounting systems were not effective (Robb, 1992). Fraud, embezzlement and swindling cases skyrocketed during the Victorian period (1837–1901) (Barrett, 1894; Kindleberger and Aliber, 2005). From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, English society became increasingly familiar with a growing level of immoral, if not illegal, business practices, with an increase in prosecutions for crimes of deception (Robb, 1992; Shore, 2015).
According to Mayhew (1862), there are two types of criminals: professional and casual. The former possess a ‘habitual indisposition to labour’ and makes a living from crime, and the latter commits crime occasionally because of the ‘pressure of circumstances’. The pressures were varied. Mayhew (1851, 1861a, 1861b, 1862) blamed the egotistical nature of these men and women, which fuelled their innate desire to appropriate whatever they fancied (egoistic reduction of morality). Emsley (2011) reported that, towards the end of the nineteenth century, criminals were being identified as individuals suffering from some form of behavioural abnormality, which had been either inherited or nurtured by a dissolute and feckless parent. Englander (2002) rejected the idea that criminality is a biological inheritance and insisted that it is a product of poverty and poor parenting. All of these connotations suggest that fraudsters, as criminals, are not the ‘active agents of their destinies’ (Coleborne, 2005: 97). Our research, therefore, endeavours to uncover how and why fraud was perpetrated in New Zealand from 1840 to 1939.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows. The next section describes the research approach employed for this study, followed by a brief history of early newspapers in New Zealand. The subsequent sections present the findings, conclusions, limitations and suggestions for future research.
Research approach
Historical research can be useful in understanding the predicaments of the present. This study aims to understand fraud and fraudsters within a context (the early years of New Zealand) as a response to changes in this context. This study of fraud in a local context and over a specific time period provides more general and time-independent insights (see Gomes et al., 2011). Contextualisation enables the narrative to provide accounts of what happened and what it was like to be involved (fraud perpetrators), as well as possibly relating to our current understanding of fraud-related issues (see Lerner, 1997). It is not intended to examine whether fraud has improved, declined, progressed or evolved. It is also not aimed at resolving present-day fraud cases. As asserted by Lee and Parker (1979: viii), ‘few of the major issues of today are unique. In fact, they are often many decades old, and no nearer solution today than they were when first mooted’. Further, the morality and values that shaped social phenomena as acceptable in the past might not be applicable or even comprehensible in retrospect, and vice versa (Napier, 2001; Stanford, 1987). Thus, the narratives are aimed at telling the story of how fraud came about and the forces that drove the perpetration of the crimes.
Since historical facts are unable to speak for themselves, an archival method for this study allows for knowledge of the past to be obtained (see Stanford, 1987). According to Muller (1952: 33), ‘the past has no meaningful existence except as it exists for us, as it is given meaning by us’. This statement includes insights into the colonial society in which the events of interest occurred, including how men and women of the time saw their world (Fleischman et al., 1996). While partisanship is inescapable, it behoves all historians to capture all sides of social conflicts using the best intelligible information available (Sy and Tinker, 2005) while remaining sceptical and having foreknowledge of the ‘interests’ that influence the reconstitution (Tinker et al., 1982) – the ‘unseen’.
This contextualisation of the ‘unseen’ might be made ‘seen’ in narrative form using historical evidence (Stanford, 1987: 6). Available documents can be investigated to piece together the most plausible story about the events of interest (White, 1987). Historical evidence can be defined as past events that illustrate or explain other events (Fleischman et al., 1996: 80). Here, the evidence can be sourced from biographies (e.g. Walker, 1996), detailed accounts of fraudsters’ daily lives (Chandler and MacNiven, 2014), court cases (Marriott, 2017a, 2017b; Marriott and Sim, 2017), as well as other sources. As asserted by Dyck et al. (2010: 3), almost all fraud revelations are published in top newspapers. Recent fraud-related research studies in other countries have used newspapers, including Cohen et al. (2012), Chen et al. (2006), Ras (2015), Goldstraw et al. (2005), and Chen et al. (2009), in the United States, China, United Kingdom, Australia/New Zealand and Canada, respectively. Chen et al. (2009) studied non-profit organisations’ fraud cases as reported by Canadian national and leading newspapers between 1998 and 2008.
The main historical evidence is obtained from material made available by the National Library of New Zealand’s digitisation project of nineteenth- and twentieth-century newspapers. They form written communicative evidence for typical interpretative accounting in historical research (Fleischman et al., 1996). The milieu of reporting permits the presumption that only information considered critical was reported. As explained by Walker (1996), similar to the present day, the responses to criminal misconduct cases were positively correlated with the degree of offence visibility and the resultant level of adverse publicity. Nonetheless, what was reported might be perceptions deemed to be acceptable or even ‘true’ at the time since facts are far more slippery and precarious (Sy and Tinker, 2005).
The year 1840 was chosen as the starting year for this study, not only because New Zealand officially came into being that year but also because it was the year in which the first New Zealand newspaper was published in Wellington – three months after the arrival of the first immigrant ship on 20 January (Saunders, 1896: 179). The data are obtained from 145 newspapers after reviewing a century of published articles. Each article was first reviewed for identification and classification purposes, such as gender, age and pressures (motives) for fraud. Each of these factors was then verified by the other authors. Approximately 20 per cent of discrepancies were identified and rectified to ensure data consistency, completeness and accuracy. The data collection required more than one year, from March 2018 to May 2019. We acknowledge that not all information was reported and that all reported fraud crimes did not necessarily represent fraud crime in its entirety since many more frauds might not have been reported or prosecuted at that time.
Newspapers in early New Zealand
The first New Zealand newspaper was initially named the New Zealand Gazette and was later known as the New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator (Saunders, 1896). It was established in 1839. The next published New Zealand newspaper was the New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette, published in Kororareka on 15 June 1840. The content of the Nelson Examiner was seen as controversial. Saunders (1896) claimed that ‘the correspondence columns of no New Zealand paper have ever exhibited more able arguments for and against the taxation of improvements, secular education, and universal suffrage than might, in its most balmy days, be seen in the Nelson Examiner’ (180). On the South Island, in every Scottish settlement, however small it was, newspapers were regarded as necessities (Saunders, 1896: 260). In Lyttelton, the first Lyttelton Times was produced on a weekly basis 26 days after the arrival of the first immigrants in Canterbury in 1851 (Saunders, 1896: 265). The Otago News produced its first edition on 13 December 1848 and then published fortnightly, but it ceased publication the following year. Its plant was later bought by a company, which published the Otago Witness in 1851. Mr William Wilkie started a second newspaper in Nelson, called the Colonist, the first edition of which came out on 23 October 1857. This newspaper was described as having ‘very unpretending manner, pretty clear declarations of policy and more or less moderate professions of political faith’, compared to the Nelson Examiner, which Nelson voters felt was constantly and systematically misrepresenting them (Saunders, 1896: 351). The first edition of the Christchurch Press was published on Saturday, 25 May 1861, three days before the office of the Lyttelton Times was flooded with four feet of water, recovering only a week later (Saunders, 1896: 436).
During the period studied, the court’s role in implementing law was not effective, and the government’s efforts to tackle fraud cases were criticised. For example, the New Zealand Herald commented,
It should be made as difficult to earn a living by cheating a customer in his purchases as it is to earn a living by picking his pocket. (New Zealand Herald, 1910)
Newspapers were also used as a medium to raise awareness of fraud cases and fraudsters. Repeat offenders were so common at the beginning of the twentieth century that the police urged the newspapers to warn the public about the fraudsters. For example, New Zealand Truth (1912) published an illustration of Leo Arthur Arnold Copeland Boranoff, who was convicted of false pretences in Lyttelton for unlawfully using the title of ‘doctor’ (Figure 1) after serving a term for a sexual offence. Years earlier, he toured New Zealand giving lectures as a Russian exile. On 7 June 1909, he gave a talk at Masterton Town Hall about how he escaped three times from imprisonment in Siberia, where he was incarcerated and suffered tortures as a political prisoner (Wairarapa Age, 1909). In 1910, the Russian impostor was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Palmerston North Court for indecent assault. He had five previous convictions in England and Scotland as Albert Burmestein, as well as three in New Zealand (Hawera & Normanby Star, 1910).
False pretence fraudster.
Findings
This section provides an analysis of the types of fraud committed, gender and age of the fraudsters, and reported pressures (motives) for committing fraud. The analysis includes all fraud cases reported by New Zealand newspapers from 1840 to 1939, including those that were reported to have occurred in Australia and the United Kingdom. 2 It is possible that all fraud cases in the other two countries were not reported in New Zealand; thus, the severity of fraud cases cannot be inferred. However, it is useful to capture the landscape of fraud cases in the period studied by comparing the fraud cases reported in New Zealand.
According to Godfrey and Dunstall (2005), the national crime rates in these three countries increased as towns’ population grew exponentially. Consequently, the colonial law started to develop in Australian colonies and later in New Zealand as part of the shift towards ‘responsible’ government from the 1820s (Coleborne, 2005; Kercher, 1995; Spiller et al., 2001). These three countries were also economically connected through the building of the New Zealand nation. For example, Saunders (1896: 435) reported that the construction of a railway between Lyttelton and Christchurch established an agreement for the authorisation of railway debenture sales by the Union Bank of Australia and for large advances on the debentures pending their sale in London.
Fraud types
Table 1 shows the frequency distribution of the different types of fraud offences in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, as reported in New Zealand newspapers from 1840 to 1939. If multiple newspapers reported the same case, it is only reported once. Due to the large amount of data, frequency analysis was used to assess the extent to which the media increased its crime coverage (Casey, 2011).
Fraud cases reported by New Zealand newspapers 1840–1939.
In total, there were 1,002 fraud cases reported in newspaper articles during the period studied. We observed that there was an increase in fraud cases reported in all countries as the years progressed to the twentieth century. This increase began with ‘Railway Mania’ that started in the mid-1840s in Great Britain and accelerated a new scale of industrial growth in financial arrangements, which amplified fraud cases in the country and beyond, through immigration, financial dealings and trade (Robb, 1992), consistent with the changes in technology and standards of living (Rice, 2013). Similarly, in New Zealand, fraud was described as ‘pre-eminently the characteristic evil of the present day in the 1880s’ (New Zealand Tablet, 1881). The complexity of new financial instruments in the nineteenth century reduced the need to carry cash and valuables; thus, robbery cases were also reduced. However, more opportunities for innovative ways of perpetrating fraud were created, which involved financial instruments, such as cheques, bonds and other opportunities offered within the banking system (Robb, 1992; Shore, 2015). The number of vulnerable people becoming victims also expanded, from the smallest investors to the rich and prominent (Emsley, 2011; Robb, 1992).
Table 1 shows that New Zealand newspapers also reported fraud cases in countries other than the United Kingdom and Australia. These countries include the United States, France and Russia. The reporting of the news in other countries helped to create public awareness about the severity of fraud cases elsewhere. A religious-based newspaper, Waiapu Church Gazette (1925), related the severity of fraud cases in America to raise concerns about the integrity and morality of New Zealand’s people and how they were behaving at work:
Three thousand million dollars have been lost in America through fraud in one year . . . New Zealand may not be as bad as America but honesty is going out of fashion even in ‘God’s own country’. The form of it that comes more directly under the public eye is the ‘go slow’ system in labor, and the greed of profiteers. . . . what percentage of laboring men do an honest day’s work for a day’s pay? Why has the cost of building gone up so much, and rents consequently so greatly increased that many a man pays half his weekly earnings for a roof to shelter him? ‘Go slow’ is responsible for half of our economic troubles. The conscientious man who tries to do, and is perfectly willing to do, an honest day’s work runs the risk of losing his life ‘by accident’, until, as the result of threats, he agrees to do as little as his mates. (Waiapu Church Gazette, 1925)
The Waiapu Church Gazette (1925) also stated, ‘Could such a state if things exist if men had been trained in boyhood in “Christian principle”?’ However, Rice (2013: 16) made a note that Christchurch having an abundance of churches and clergy did not appear to have made its citizens unusually moral or God fearing since crime was just as prevalent as in other New Zealand cities.
Table 2 lists the number of fraud cases by type, that is, the method in which fraud was committed in New Zealand. The fraud type is classified as closely as reported in the newspapers. The false reporting and return fraud category is recorded if the reported fraud involved the making or publishing of any false statement in relation to business accounts or transactions and business-related tax returns. The false pretence and representation fraud category typically involved cases in which the fraudsters claimed to be or represented themselves as someone whom they were not. For analysis purposes, the cases involving false pretences, false declaration and representation are classified as one category. Often, the offences were committed together in one crime. For example, David William Carter was charged with false pretences on 3 August 1915 for falsely representing that he was authorised by the manager of Olrig Station to hire a motorcar to go to Dannevirke and Palmerston North to purchase cattle and sheep for the Olrig Station (Hastings Standard, 1917).
Total reported cases by fraud type 1840–1939.
As seen in Table 2, the top three fraud categories are false pretences and representation, obtaining credit by fraud, and forgery. The false pretence and representation fraud category typically involved cases in which the fraudsters claimed to be or represented themselves as someone whom they were not. This crime is different from false reporting and return fraud category, mainly consisting of fraud cases that involved the making or publishing of any false statement in relation to business accounts or transactions and business-related tax returns. The obtaining credit by fraud category included obtaining money, credit or goods. In terms of fraud by forgery, the most commonly forged items were cheques, bank notes, telegrams, letters of credit, betting tickets, receipts, and birth and qualification certificates.
False pretences and representation
False pretences and representation were mostly related to identity theft, for instance, pretending to be a qualified medical practitioner (West Coast Times, 1903), military policeman (North Otago Times, 1916), Parliament House staff (Press, 1932) and surveyor’s assistant (Bush Advocate, 1908). An example of false pretences is a case reported in the New Zealand Herald concerning Mr Herbert Slater, a motor engineer of Knightsbridge. With the prefix of ‘Honourable’ attached to his name, he wrote cheques for large amounts (which were later dishonoured), pretended to be a managing director, lived extravagantly, incurred debts and convinced a number of influential people to believe that he was a professional man of standing (false representation) (New Zealand Herald, 1909). In another case, Maraku Mokau admitted to obtaining board and lodging by fraud by pretending to be a returned soldier receiving treatment and that he had served at Gallipoli and in France (Auckland Star, 1919). In yet another case, Arthur George was fooled by Rangatahi Hori Tauroa (Evening Star, 1926). Tauroa admitted in the Police Court that he obtained £581 from George by falsely representing that he had £5,000 on fixed deposit in a bank by producing receipts for various sums making up the amount. He spent £250 on a motor car, married and went on his honeymoon.
Tohungaism was also widespread during these times. In the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, a tohunga is an expert practitioner of any skill or art, either religious or otherwise. Tohungas include expert priests, healers, navigators, carvers, builders, teachers and advisors (Tohunga, 2019). In 1912, Whare Taha was called a gigantic fraud and convicted for unlawful practices, which caused the death of Wiri Kupa (New Zealand Times, 1912). According to Detective Kemp of Napier, it was proved that the accused had treated several persons at Mohaka and Wairoa for devils, and he had terrified the sick people, who feared calling a doctor. The practices of so-called medicine men among Māoris were contested by Mr Henare Kaihau, a Māori Member of Parliament. He stated that
. . . closely connected with the evils that affected the remnant of the Māori race, were the tohungas, who traded on the ignorance of their fellows. In his own sphere, the Māori is not more ignorant than the average pakeha. Mr. Kaihau said that the only place for these imposters of his own race was gaol. The atrocities practiced by the Māori tohungas are unbelievable, but while Māori tohungaism flourishes so also does the worst kind of pakeha tohungaism. Almost any charlatan having a new religion, a new specific, a new anything, may come along and make much money out of the public. We have had innumerable instances of this kind of fraud in New Zealand during the past few years, not the least injurious of which have been the work of palmists, psychometrists, seers, and other money-makers. There is no doubt that the Māori tohunga must be wiped out, but during the process of elimination it is sincerely hoped that the white fakir will he made to drop out of the scheme of things as well. (Taranaki Daily News, 1910)
Other cases involved old-age pension withdrawals and food adulteration. 3 The Registrar of Old-Age Pensions at the time was unrelenting in his pursuit of persons depleting the pension fund by fraud (Evening Post, 1904). One example was James Donald, a pensioner aged 77. In 1899, he was granted a pension of £18. Then, his wife died, leaving him a property valued at £250. A renewal certificate for the pension and subsequent renewals were applied with no mention of the legacy. The pensioner, who drew £90 in pensions, was sued for £65. The fact of his receiving the legacy in question reduced his pension to £5 per year. It was not until December 1903 that the position of the whole affair came to light (Evening Post, 1904).
False declaration was related to food adulteration. In London, adulteration cases reached their peak in 1850 (Burnett, 1959). In 1861, 87 per cent of the bread and 74 per cent of the milk sold in London were impure (Burnett, 1959: 106). In New Zealand, although the Sale of Food and Drugs Act was introduced in 1877, enforcement of the law was lacking. The 1910s were described as the age of scientific discoveries and mechanical progress but also the age of adulteration and fraudulent imitation (New Zealand Tablet, 1910). As reported by the New Zealand Tablet (13 October 1910),
Nowadays honey is made without the aid of the busy bee; egg-powder is put on the market, for which the industrious hen is in no way responsible, and jams are placed on our breakfast tables that are quite innocent of the fruits after which they are named.
New Zealand newspapers started to report adulteration cases (e.g. New Zealand Herald, 1911, 1918). These included adulteration of butter (Otago Witness, 1906; New Zealand Herald, 1914); smoked fish (Press, 1918); tea, coffee and vinegar (Poverty Bay Herald, 1932); milk (Press, 1937); mutton (New Zealand Mail, 1901); wool (Marlborough Express, 1905); and fertilisers (Poverty Bay Herald, 1906).
The fertiliser case (Poverty Bay Herald, 1906) was one of considerable interest to the mercantile and agricultural community since it was the first of its kind in the colony. A well-known Auckland merchant, John Schischka, pleaded guilty to unlawfully selling manure to which a false trademark was applied, as well as applying false trade descriptions to certain goods. A butter adulteration case was reported in 1914, which was perpetrated by Thomas Ward, the secretary of the Aria Dairy Company near Te Kuiti. He was charged with selling butter without a label containing the names and addresses of the manufacturers and also for selling butter mixed with boracic acid without having a label attached providing the proportion of the preservative used (Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, 1914; New Zealand Herald, 1914).
The North Canterbury District urged the government to amend the law so that a deliberately misleading statement in an advertisement about food items could be regarded as fraudulent and treated as such (Remits for Convention, 1939). The New Zealand Herald criticised the lack of action on the part of the government:
Many forms of theft and fraud are combated by the police with commendable energy, but the theft and fraud involved in selling below weight and in selling adulterated or inferior food and drink are hardly interfered with. The bad effect of this neglect upon the health and pocket of the community is incalculable. (New Zealand Herald, 1910)
The New Zealand Tablet (1910) suggested that the police and health departments enforce the act with unceasing vigilance. Furthermore, it called for the press to give full publicity to the act and for physicians and hygienists to educate people about the evils of food and drink adulteration. Several public lectures were held to create awareness among the public about rampant adulteration and the creative ways in which food was adulterated. These lectures were held, for example, by the New Zealand Sanitary Inspectors’ Association (Poverty Bay Herald, 1932) and the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry (Press, 1937).
Obtaining money, credit and goods by fraud
The most common forms of fraud in this category were the use of valueless cheques to obtain credit for lodging in hotels, hiring taxis and paying railway fares. For example, Hui Kai Rehu, who had just completed a term of two years in prison, pleaded guilty to the charge of incurring a liability of £16 by obtaining credit by fraud. He was riding in taxis and issuing valueless cheques (Auckland Star, 1926a).
On a charge of obtaining credit by fraud, Edward Rangaihi Rennio, aged 25, a labourer, pleaded guilty for not paying his rent (New Zealand Herald, 1935). Other ways were also reported, such as raising money for the production of a film (Waikato Times, 1922) and the continuance of widows’ pensions in which withdrawals were made even after the widow had remarried (Evening Post, 1927a). Typical goods obtained through fraud included meals (Manawatu Standard, 1919), clothing (Auckland Star, 1934; New Zealand Herald, 1925a; New Zealand Herald, 1925e), books and booklets (Manawatu Standard, 1926a) and grocery items, including champagne and chocolates (New Zealand Herald, 1937a). For instance, the Manawatu Standard reported that Emil Charles Noffke was charged with obtaining food from the Feilding Health Committee. Noffke was single but went to the committee during the influenza epidemic to obtain meals by representing himself as a married man with five children who were all sick (Manawatu Standard, 1919). The counsel in the case of Edward John Samuel, who obtained £2,000 credit by fraud (New Zealand Herald, 1929), remarked that ‘. . . the world was divided into two parts – those who borrow and those who steal’.
Forgery
Forgery was referred to as ‘the favourite crime of the colony’ by Justice Alexander Johnston on 7 July 1884 due to its proliferation in the late nineteenth century (Rice, 2013: 10). The Auckland Star (1944) reported that punishment for forgery by death ceased in 1832, except in cases of forging or altering wills or power of attorney to transfer stock. After 1832, the news reports on forgery were largely silent on the nature and details of the cases. On rare occasions, what had been forged was mentioned, such as state bonds (Evening Post, 1932), money (dollar notes) (Auckland Star, 1889), cheques (e.g. Hawera & Normanby Star, 1921), vouchers (Grey River Argus, 1915), receipts (Grey River Argus, 1886), certificates (New Zealand Herald, 1924a) and winning race tickets (Auckland Star, 1907). The last person executed for forgery was Thomas Maynard on 31 December 1829 (Auckland Star, 1944). As such, we are unable to analyse further details of the cases or correlate the genders and motives of the perpetrators.
Profiling fraudsters
The discussions of the age and gender of fraudsters are provided as follows.
Age of fraudsters
Similar to the United Kingdom, young males typically committed a higher proportion of petty crimes than their older male cohorts (Emsley, 2011). They were considered the category most ‘at risk’ (Fairburn, 1989: 147). In terms of fraudulent activities, the younger male and female fraudsters were the least reported age category: 11.9 per cent and 3 per cent of total fraudsters. One example of a younger fraudster is the case of Erie George Stewart, aged 23, who pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to obtain £50 by falsely representing that he was GL Morrow of Manurewa, the winner of the first prize from the New Zealand Natives’ Association. This case was one of the most interesting cases of false pretences since Mr Stewart had never been in trouble before and was said to be of very respectable parentage. He attained access to the answer of a competition, and to win the prize money of £50, he entered the competition as GL Morrow and won unfairly over hundreds of other entries (Evening Post, 1927b).
Emsley (2011) noted that most offenders were from working-class backgrounds, and their offences were petty compared to the frauds committed by middle-class businessmen. The older age category was associated with high position and power exploitation (Robb, 1992). It was reported in the United Kingdom that as many as 50 per cent of directors engaged in insider trading in the 1920s (Samuel, 1933: 168).
Table 3 shows that, in general, older men committed more fraud than younger men. Our data show that they were between the ages of 42 and 58 and held positions at the managerial or executive level, such as chairman, director, bank officer, councillor, accountant, managing director, manager or solicitor. An example is the fraud committed by Stanley Reginald Burns. He was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry but later, as a company promoter, was found guilty of six charges of publishing false balance sheets to create false impressions with the intention of greatly deceiving shareholders and creditors (Evening Post, 1943).
New Zealand’s top three fraud by fraudsters’ gender.
Politicians were no exception. The most interesting case is that of the Superintendent of the Otago Provincial Council, Mr James MacAndrew. He was bankrupted due to the failure of several commercial ventures. According to Saunders (1896: 424–427), MacAndrew borrowed sums of £486 and £600 of public money from the Provincial Treasurer two months following his election, claiming that they were urgently needed. The money was still not repaid when the accounts were audited. He also received payment that was supposed to be received by W.H. Reynolds and took £1,073 of public money in cash from bank. His cheque of £835, 13 s, 4 d, as payment was dishonoured by the bank. When his fraud was uncovered, he misused his position as the Otago superintendent by instructing the keeper of the public gaols of the Colony of New Zealand to imprison himself (MacAndrew) in his own house to avoid imprisonment in the public gaol. The letter written by MacAndrew was republished in the Otago Daily Times (1948) as follows:
In consequence of the overcrowded state of the gaol and the want of suitable accommodation for debtors, I, as superintendent of the Province of Otago and a visiting Justice of the Gaol, Dunedin, hereby authorise and require you to remove James MacAndrew, a debtor in your custody, to Carisbrook House within your jurisdiction. (Otago Daily Times, 1948)
He signed the letter, dated 28 January 1861, as James MacAndrew, Superintendent. Pressured by the local newspapers and media attention, Governor Gore Browne intervened by removing MacAndrew from office and rescinding his Carisbrook House proclamation. He later declared himself from prison a candidate for re-election as the Otago superintendent. He managed to gain support from nearly one-third of the electors, and this outcome outraged the local newspapers. On 15 May 1861, the Lyttelton Times wrote,
. . . Were Mr. MacAndrew restored to office, the credit and character of the province would be irretrievably ruined, . . . and corruption and falsehood would permeate through every artery of the body politic . . . We call upon all who would save our adopted land from becoming a mockery and a by-word to ‘Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!’ (Lyttelton Times, 1861a)
Earlier, the Lyttelton Times (1861b) wrote,
The impending contest for the Superintendency involves much more than any election which has yet been held in these islands; for it will affect not only the material prosperity of the province, which is sufficiently important in itself, but also the political future of the whole colony, and the moral character of its people. (Lyttelton Times, 1861b)
He survived the media critics, was elected a Member of Parliament and rose to the ministerial ranks. He was reappointed superintendent in 1867 and retained this office until the abolition of the provinces in 1876 (Otago Daily Times, 1948).
Gender of fraudsters
Our analysis revealed that the most common types of the frauds committed by woman were by fraudsters perpetrating false pretences, followed by obtaining credit by fraud and then forgery. One example of a woman committing false pretences was Jean Drysdale Shaw of Wellington, who was charged with making a false representation on a prospectus (Press, 1932). Our data show that the number of fraud cases involving women was 135 (10.6%). According to McKenzie (2005: 161), as a daily average, the percentage of women held in the various prisons throughout New Zealand was close to 10 per cent of the total prison population between 1900 and 1910.
‘Macho’ male culture in colonial communities has been associated with unruliness, drunkenness, violence and other crimes in society (Fairburn, 1989; Godfrey and Dunstall, 2005). In New Zealand, however, Fairburn (1989: 213) claimed that the atomised state of society was the main reason due to the looseness of the colony’s social ties, which were too weak to develop a collective consciousness. In terms of fraud cases, male fraudsters were overall far more commonly found than women across the top three fraud categories (89.4%), possibly because men were in a position of power and employment, which at that time provided more opportunities and means of committing fraud.
In terms of punishments, the newspapers also showed that the punishments for false representation were harsh. According to Rice (2012), judges were sometimes criticised for imposing heavier sentences for fraud or embezzlement than for crimes against the person, which indicated immense respect for property and money in the nineteenth century. For example, George William Thomas was sentenced to nine months of hard labour after being found guilty of obtaining £12 by false representation (Waikato Times, 1921). In another case, Cecil Johnston was sentenced to one month of imprisonment for obtaining 12 s from one woman and attempting to obtain 12 s, 6 d, from another by representing himself as a meter reader from the City Corporation (Poverty Bay Herald, 1930). In the case of Lowe, Sons & Bedford, its directors and auditor were sentenced to six months of imprisonment for conspiring and publishing false statements in a prospectus (Manawatu Standard, 1905).
In the case of obtaining credit by fraud, the cases varied from unlawfully obtaining credit as tradesmen or commission agents (e.g. Northern Advocate, 1928) to more rare cases of taxi hiring. For this type of fraud, an individual hired a taxi knowingly that he or she did not have the means to pay at the end of the ride. Although unusual, the punishment was quite severe. For example, George Michalick was sentenced to seven days of imprisonment (New Zealand Herald, 1941); Pirihiri Hoana, alias Tehema Mane, to 14 days of imprisonment (Auckland Star 1926b); and Chas Clark to 14 days of hard work (Auckland Star, 1927).
Two sisters, Ada May Phyllis and Ivy Hazel Ada Birchell, became famous for committing fraud by advertising in newspapers calling for a loan of £7 for a repayment of £10. In total, they managed to secure £39 by operating in Christchurch and other towns (New Zealand Herald, 1926a). In order to escape detection, some even disguised themselves. For example, a young man named Te Ahurangi Matene was charged with obtaining credit by fraud of more than £6 by falsely representing himself as a woman by the name of Rosanna Laihae (Manawatu Standard, 1933). However, the reason for his action was not reported.
While the frauds perpetrated by men often involved trade goods or cash, the cases involving women were mainly to obtain less valuable items, such as books (Manawatu Standard, 1926a), clothing, cosmetics and beauty treatments (New Zealand Herald, 1937a), shoes (New Zealand Herald, 1925b), frocks and clothing (Auckland Star, 1934; New Zealand Herald, 1925a; New Zealand Herald, 1925e), and household goods (New Zealand Herald, 1925c; Southland Times, 1908). For example, a 15-year-old girl was charged with fraud perpetrated to obtain a pair of shoes (New Zealand Herald, 1927b). An example of a male fraudster is the case of Karaka Kerepa, aged 65 years. He went around the country obtaining orders from storekeepers after giving false assurance that he had money with the Public Trustee (Auckland Star, 1932).
Two factors that contribted to fraud were considered in the nineteenth century. The first was whether bad character (being a fraudster) was a disease. The second was whether bad character could be caused by an inherited condition. These discussions centred on women and were based on the cultural perception of what women should look like and how they should behave. In general, women were expected to perform household chores, such as cooking and cleaning, and act as the ‘moral currency’ for the new colonial societies in which ‘good women’ were very important for ensuring the quality of the community (MacDonald, 1990: 17). Thus, deviant women were not acceptable, and the underlying causes of female criminality had been a main subject of consideration among scientists and psychologists. It was a general belief in the nineteenth century that female crime was the manifestation of innate pathology. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1809) was very popular with his theory of the inheritance of acquired characters; that is, acquired traits are passed down from one generation to the next. In terms of criminality, Cesare Lambroso believed some criminals were born with a propensity to offend (Albrecht, 1910; Bretherick, 2015). Lombroso and Ferrero (1895: 107) claimed that female criminality was biologically determined, and a criminal woman was even more biologically primitive than a criminal man. This proposition was questionable because the crime rate perpetrated by women was not higher than the men’s crime rate (Heidensohn, 1985).
In the early twentieth century, women criminals were identified as a biological source of crime and degeneracy. They were viewed as products of hereditarily transmitted innate defects, which posed a danger to society from their reproduction and multiplication in the next generation (Zedner, 1991: 308, 342). ‘Bad’ women would conceive ‘bad’ children (Rafter, 1980, 1997); nonetheless, according to Zedner (1991: 339), female criminality was coloured by culturally determined conceptions of what constitutes normality and deviance in women. As noted by Rice (2012: 165), ‘yet for all those who followed their parents into a life of crime there were many more who resolved to keep on the right side of the law rather than repeat the mistakes and miseries of their parents’.
The marital status of the offenders was rarely disclosed, but it is observed that, in some cases in which the offender was female and married, the marital status was disclosed, but it was not usually the case if the offender was male. For instance, Jean Drysdale Shaw was described as a married woman in Press (1932), and in the case of Fanny Hughes, she was described as a young married woman (Southland Times, 1908). The same went for Ida Lillian Newman (New Zealand Herald, 1921) and Ruby Lucas (New Zealand Herald, 1926b) when they were charged with having obtained goods by false pretences.
Emsley (2011) reported that, although most offenders who were brought before the courts were male, in cases in which women were brought before the courts, the tendency was to treat them more harshly, not only because they had transgressed the law but also because they had transgressed the perceptions of womanhood. Female prisoners were widely regarded as incorrigible ‘degenerates’, beyond hope of reformation (Clayworth, 2019). They were considered a threat until they were ‘reformed’ (New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (NZPD), 1909: 461). For example, the New Zealand Herald (1917) reported that a young woman named Christina K McDonald, 20 years of age, pleaded guilty to five charges of obtaining money by false pretences by purporting to have a rich uncle in America. She was reported as displaying a considerable amount of cunning to deceive her relatives for £75 as a loan. Her male defence lawyer admitted that the offences were most extraordinary and that her capacity for truthfulness was certainly limited. The magistrate said the case was one of the most extraordinary he had ever come across. He said,
For a young girl, the prisoner had shown exceeding criminal cunning. Her letters read like an American novel about a high-class ‘crook’. . . . The girl evidently had some mental twist which had had the effect of turning her considerable abilities into an entirely wrong channel. As she was, she was a danger to the community, and some restraint was necessary. (New Zealand Herald, 1917)
He ordered her to be detained for reformative treatment for not more than three years. This treatment was applied to other young women who did not conform to the ‘ideal woman’ stereotype. Although they were not convicted of criminal offences, they were trained in all areas of domestic service and housekeeping as inmates under the Reformatory Institutions Act 1909. They were separated from the majority (90%) of New Zealand female convicts, who were usually older (McKenzie, 2005), so as not to be contaminated. The older female convicts were kept in the penitentiary section and undertook punitive and industrial tasks, such as making prison clothing and doing laundry (McKenzie, 2005; NZPD, 1910). In NZPD (1910), the Minister of Justice at the time made a remark that ‘. . . where you have a woman as habitual criminal, in ninety cases out of a hundred her case is hopeless’ (357). They were considered more wicked, hardened and recidivist women offenders, and they would never be redeemed (Hannah-Moffat, 2001; Rafter, 1990). 4
The pressures
Not all problems could be endured; some people succumbed to their circumstances and committed fraud (Napier, 2001; White, 1973). Arnold and Bonython (2016: 11) provided examples of three taxonomies of motivations for fraud: keeping things together, keeping up appearances and keeping the party going. They stated that some offenders engage in theft to ‘keep things together’ (crime proceeds are used for living expenses, such as putting food on the table). For example, a poor couple, George Errol Coates (24), a labourer, and Constance Riddle (28), were charged with obtaining £1, 5 s, from the Otago Finance and Agency Company, Dunedin, by false pretences to sustain their children. In consideration of the welfare of their three illegitimate children, they were sentenced to three years of probation with the condition that they should marry within 14 days, and the male accused was ordered to pay back the money by weekly payments (New Zealand Herald, 1926c). This case is an example of ‘keeping things together’. The other two categories are ‘keeping up appearances’ (the proceeds are spent on conspicuous consumption: expensive clothes, jewellery, or other status reinforcement) and ‘keeping the party going’ through the purchase of drugs (see also Topalli, 2005). Figure 2 illustrates a judge’s remark to a fraudster in one of the newspapers (Observer, 1902).
Pressure to commit fraud.
The New Zealand fraud cases are examined further to include their motives for perpetrating fraud crimes. However, most of the newspaper articles rarely disclosed this information. According to Rice (2012), cases of fraud or embezzlement were often too long and complex to summarise. Common pressures by the top three fraud types (false pretence and representation, obtaining by fraud and forgery) and gender are shown in Figure 3.
Reported motives for the top three New Zealand fraud types 1840–1939.
In total, the newspapers reported 87 fraudsters with full information on gender, age and motives for committing fraud. Seventy of them were male (80.5%). Most of the fraudsters were committing fraud to ‘keep things together’ (62%), followed by the ‘keeping the party going’ category (12.6%). There were also cases in which the fraudsters indicated that they had committed fraud because of bad associates, threatening or not (10.3%). These cases are classified as a new category: ‘gang and peer influence’. Othman et al. (2020) suggested that, if the motives are not financial, they might be psychologically motivated, feeling good in doing it or to ‘keep going’. These motivations account for 9.2 per cent of the total. The least mentioned motive was to ‘keep up appearances’ (5.7%). False pretences and representation were the offences committed most by both men and women, compared to fraud cases involving fraud and forgery. Detailed analysis and examples of such fraud cases are discussed as follows using five categories: keeping things together, keep the party going, gang and peer influence, keep on going and keeping up appearances.
Keeping things together
This motive is mainly due to poverty and hardship and is not driven by the psychological state of the fraudsters. Inherent depravity often led to a life of illegality (Rice, 2013: 16). More than half of the fraudsters committed fraud because they were having difficulties putting food on the table, supporting their families, finding better homes for themselves or paying rent when due, or they did not have any family to support them. One woman admitted that she was illiterate, could not find employment and thus resorted to fraud. The cases also showed that some of the fraudsters were newly arrived in New Zealand and were having difficulties gaining employment. In another case, a male fraudster was attempting to accumulate sufficient funds to leave New Zealand and returned to America. There were also soldiers who had returned from war and suffered injuries. For example, Thomas Savage, was a returned soldier who suffered from war disabilities. He made a false statement to obtain a special pension since he anticipated a breakdown in his health and did not think that he could continue performing heavy work indefinitely (New Zealand Herald, 1924b). In another case, a middle-aged labourer, Henry Keogh, discharged from the Expeditionary Force in 1919, was granted a temporary pension, which was made permanent in November 1921. In September 1923, he applied for an economic pension of 30 s per week (in addition to his permanent pension), which was intended only for men unable to earn a living or obtain light employment. He said he was rapidly reaching the time when he would be solely dependent upon his pension (New Zealand Herald, 1924b). He pleaded guilty to making a false declaration to the Pensions Board regarding his employment.
False pretences and false representation were the most commonly reported crimes by fraudsters who wanted to ‘keep things together’. In one case, Mrs Florence Edith Purnell claimed that she had expenses in connection with her and her sister’s tuberculosis (New Zealand Herald, 1938). In another case, William Tukapua falsely stated that he had a child under his care (Poverty Bay Herald, 1939). In another case, two boys deceived a shopkeeper by obtaining boot polish, laces and rubber heels with fictitious notes. The mother of one of the boys was divorced, and the boy claimed that he was not receiving the benefits of parental control. The other boy’s father was ill and unable to give him proper attention (New Zealand Herald, 1925d).
Obtaining credit by fraud was also frequent. For example, John Hamilton was fined £2 for obtaining credit by fraud to obtain a pair of shoes valued at 45 s by convincing Tate’s Boot Shop that one of its regular customers had sent him over for the shoes (Evening Post, 1929a). In another case, David Ronald Simmon Grant admitted to claiming that he was the trustee of an estate and had authority to order groceries from Johns, a grocer (Evening Post, 1929a). Other cases involved lodging (Poverty Bay Herald, 1926) and necessity items, such as food and grain (Nelson Evening Mail, 1928b). A labourer was sentenced to eight months of imprisonment for obtaining credit by fraud to support his wife and children, whom he had left destitute in Timaru (New Zealand Herald, 1930). Poverty and hardship had left some people with no choice but to resort to deviant behaviour (Rice, 2013).
In terms of the justice system, in the Observer (1906), the newspaper praised New Zealand for having been equal to all classes of offenders by comparing two cases that appeared at the Auckland Supreme Court in the same week. One case was perpetrated by John Schischka, a wealthy merchant who pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully selling manure with a false trademark and applying a false trade description to certain goods. The other case was of William Woodcock, a poor man, who was found guilty of stealing three sacks of kauri gum. It was deliberated on 26 May 1906 that
If there is one thing that New Zealanders pride themselves upon more than another, it is the glorious fact that in this democratic country of ours all men, whether rich or poor, are on an equal footing. In the eyes of the Law especially they are equal. The low born criminal and the evil-doer of high degree are tried in the same dock, sentenced by the same Judge, and consigned to the same prison. There is no difference between them because one criminal chances to be a man of wealth and influence and the other is a miserable devil without money to fee a lawyer or means to obtain a meal. In this glorious democratic country of ours, the measure of punishment is equal for all classes of offenders against the Law, whether they be rich as Croesus or poor as Lazarus. (Observer, 1906)
However, there were also criminal cases in which, if perpetrated by citizens from privileged social classes, they received different public treatment (Marriott, 2017a, 2017b; Marriott and Sim, 2017), for instance, the case of a bankrupt lawyer, Leonard Harper, a son of the Bishop of Christchurch. He had caused many investors and Britain to lose large amounts of money, yet he was acquitted in 1896, and the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, declared that no intention to defraud had been proved (after only half an hour of deliberation). Conversely, his accountant had been sentenced to two years of imprisonment with hard labour for having embezzled large sums of money (Marlborough Express, 1894). Coming from the most respectable families, friends and relatives in England made no claims, never accused him of any criminality and regarded his failure as the result of overconfidence and bad luck during difficult times (Rice, 2013).
This apparent class privilege among the offenders was emphasised by Grey River Argus newspaper in its article entitled ‘Guilty or Not Guilty’, published on 3 May 1878:
There is nothing so bewildering as a just and proper estimate of crime, and in erring humanity’s mode of dealing with it. If a wrongdoer be poor and miserable, driven by his wretched circumstances to commit some wrong against society, he is, sure to feel the full weight of the law. If he is totally destitute, this of itself is a crime, and the unhappy vagrant may be doomed to wear out his days in repeated imprisonments. But if the criminal be wealthy, if he be clothed in purple and fine linen, he may be guilty of fraud, or oppression, and the chances are that no one dares to notice his delinquency, and even if he be guilty of grosser crimes he is more likely to escape the vengeance of the law than if he had been literally a ‘miserable offender’. . . . The fraudulent embezzler of millions stand in a very different position from the underpaid clerk who is tempted to appropriate a pound or two which may come in his way . . .
The fairness of the justice system came under public scrutiny again when the Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court in Timaru, who was convicted of defrauding the public revenue, received a light sentence. The South Canterbury Times (1879) criticised the sentences, saying,
. . . It is not so long since a railway guard was prosecuted after a most vindictive fashion in a Criminal Court because it was suspected that he had failed to account for a few shillings that he received from passengers. It seems a monstrous thing that a Deputy Registrar who has been robbing the public revenue in the way that Davies has been doing should escape with a fine, while a telegraph officer or letter-carrier caught tripping under rather sore temptation is summarily consigned to the roads for a term of years. This Supreme Court episode shows conclusively that the fountain head of justice is far from being untainted, and that fraud and corruption in high places fails to realise the close scrutiny which in the interests of public morality, is desirable. It is unfortunate for the honest portion of the community that while fools are punished for comparatively trifling offences, rogues of the worst description are allowed to escape. To allow offenders like the late Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court at Christchurch to avoid the unpleasantness of a criminal prosecution, is to offer a severe temptation to the very worst class of frauds and defalcations that can be imagined. What is justice coming to?
The South Canterbury Times (1879) made a metaphorical remark about the criminal law being a fishing net made with an exceedingly fine mesh to catch the small fry and allow the big fish to break through and escape.
Keep the party going
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, criminal offenders were perceived as reluctant to do an honest day’s work and preferring idleness, drinking, luxury and an easy life (Emsley, 2011). From 1853 to 1930 in New Zealand, Fairburn (1989: 214–215, 224) suggested that possible reasons for excessive drinking were to block out loneliness because people had little connection to groups and networks and because it was the only pastime they had. Rice (2013) suggested that a great deal of crime among the colonial population seemed to be associated with alcohol, and our data show that alcohol addiction was reported more frequently than drug abuse. In general, alcohol was viewed as the enemy of the settled and respectable parts of society, and the levels of chronic inebriation in New Zealand led to the formation of temperance societies in the 1820s, gaining momentum during the 1880s. The movement was initially started by church groups, which urged their members to sign pledges to abstain from alcohol and pressured Parliament to impose restrictions or even a total prohibition on the sale of alcohol (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2018a: 2). Advocates and opponents were powerful lobby groups and fought for votes, but prohibition was never introduced to New Zealand (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2018d).
All cases were perpetrated by men, except for one woman who admitted to obtaining credit by fraud. She was Hazel Mary Mann, aged 41, and was under the influence of morphia, having contracted the drug habit when she was a nurse (Press, 1943). In another case, George Charles Brandon, an insurance broker, said that he had a dual personality, one side of which loathed the other for giving way to drink and drugs. He was charged with obtaining £8, 8 s, of credit from two nursing homes by fraud (Waikato Times, 1927).
On 14 July, Waipa Post (1911) newspaper published a column in which eminent doctors gave their opinions about drinking. In this column, entitled ‘Temperance Column’, Sir Victor Horsley was reported as saying,
The only proper use of alcohol to an ordinary healthy person is its disuse. Either as a food or a drug, we recognise that alcohol is of no service – or of very little – to the community. No service as a food, and very doubtful service as a drug. A system of legislation should be enacted whereby the sale and use of alcohol shall be very largely prohibited and prevented. The medical profession knows well that alcohol is a potent cause of disease, poverty and death.
Gang and peer influence
We also observed that the apparent influence of associates and friends had an effect on those around them as offenders or victims. Nine fraudsters (10.5%) blamed their bad associates for causing them to commit fraud. In 1913, four men – William Morrow Saunders, William Henry Owens, Henry Lloyd Davies and Richard Tyrell – pleaded guilty to various charges in connection with a conspiracy in Onehunga to defraud the Union Steam Ship Company (Hawera & Normanby Star, 1913). The charges involved conspiracy, falsification and forgery of paysheets, and false pretences. Saunders was the principal offender since he was the mastermind who conceived of the system of fraud, while the other accused were acting more or less under his influence. According to Sutherland (1983), dishonest employees, especially those in positions of authority within an organisation, would eventually infect a proportion of honest employees. Ramamoorti et al. (2009) suggested that certain group dynamics encourage or facilitate fraud (collusive fraud) among employees in the same organisation.
In another case, Paul Patrick Dawkins, aged 18, who was described as being of excellent character, was placed on probation for 18 months on the condition that he made restitution, returned to his father in Timaru, and did not associate with Charles Gordon Holland. They were both charged with obtaining an overcoat, a pair of trousers and £6, 18 s, by false representation with a cheque (Evening Post, 1934). In another case, George James Cullen, aged 36, admitted to three charges of false pretences using cheque forms that he had obtained from a friend whose name he did not know (New Zealand Herald, 1937b). In the New Zealand Herald (1936), a condition was imposed upon James Andrew Walton that he should not associate with certain specified people.
Keep on going
The Keep on going motive is a psychological, rather than financially motivated, incentive. The offenders could not stop doing things, felt good of doing things, were irrational mainly due to mental issues, and suffered impulse control (Arnold and Bonython, 2016: 177; Crichton, 1959; Levi, 2008). Examples are the cases of Martha Tainui, Edward Kahi and Wiremu Tareha. With 20 convictions, the Thames Star (1905) reported that Martha, a young woman, had made for herself a career of fraud in Wellington by representing herself to be the owner of property at Papanui worth £3,800. In the Marlborough Express (1905), she was called ‘a princess of swindlers’. In the cases of Edward Kahi (New Zealand Herald, 1927a) and Wiremu Tareha (Lake Country Press, 1912), the newspapers reported that they had many convictions in the past and continued committing fraud. However, their motives for committing these frauds were not reported.
Psychological reasons could be used as the line of defence in court (Othman et al., 2020). Our data show that six of our fraudsters claimed that their mental issues were the main reason for their offences. For example, in the Evening Post (1938), Frank William Graham Herdman, an accountant, pleaded guilty to a charge of forging a cheque. In making a plea for leniency, his counsel referred to Herdman’s mental and physical ill health and said that his client’s previous record was an unblemished one, and he could not have received or have hoped to receive any pecuniary benefit from his action on this occasion. Similarly, in another case, Elizabeth Major’s counsel stated that his client should be examined by experts regarding her mental condition, stating that she was apparently suffering from the delusion that she actually possessed war bonds. She was charged with obtaining ‘furniture on the hire purchase system by falsely representing that she had £1,800 worth of war bonds’ (New Zealand Herald, 1925c). In the case of David William Carter, charged with false pretences, false representation and obtaining credit by fraud, the defendant said that he very much regretted deceiving the victims, that he had been suffering from mental derangement for many years, and that he had no control over his actions and gave way to sudden impulses (Hastings Standard, 1917).
Keeping up appearances
Englander (2002) suggested that the human nature of self-love consists of the desire to be admired and the disinclination to be despised. The proceeds of fraudulent activities were typically spent on luxuries, never putting food on the table (Gubbins, personal communication, 6 November 2018). The perpetrators were not a ‘binary proletariat’ (Arnold and Bonython, 2016: 177). Our findings show that this motive of keeping up appearances was the least reported motive. Only five fraudsters claimed that it was the main reason for their perpetrating fraud. In 1935, Paul Edward Din had a desire to live a life of luxury and comfort at the expense of other people (Manawatu Standard, 1935). He was found guilty of three charges of forgery and three of false pretences in defrauding the Post Office Savings Bank of £4,030. Another fraudster wanted to be known as the winner of a competition (Evening Post, 1927). Three of the other fraudsters committed fraud with the intention of obtaining sufficient money to travel to Australia and overseas.
Conclusion
The main purpose of this article is to understand why fraudsters acted as they did in post-colonial times. Using an archival method involving digitised newspapers, we contextualise the fraud cases in 1840–1939 to advance our knowledge of the most common types of fraud committed and the gender and age of the fraudsters. We find that false pretences and representation, obtaining credit by fraud, and forgery were the most common fraud crimes.
The historical analysis reveals that fraud occurred as early as 1840 in New Zealand. Older men were predominant in the fraud statistics, and these men were in positions of power and employment, providing more opportunities and means of committing fraud. Of particular note, the moral agency of the fraudsters was portrayed as predetermined, perhaps by birth; newspapers reported women fraudsters as being a curse to society. The debates over whether a crime is committed due to inherited traits or as a disease passed on to the next generation mainly focused on female criminality, which might have been biased towards the perception of how typical women should behave. The frauds perpetrated by men involved goods and cash. In contrast, the cases involving women were to obtain immaterial items, such as books, shoes, frocks and household goods. Fraud also evolved from the adulteration of food due to economic hardship, which was life threatening to the poor and vulnerable, to losses in terms of profits to businessmen and shareholders in the middle and upper classes.
Our research provides insight into the underlying factors contributing to fraud in a society of the past. Many of these factors persist in the present day, such as ‘keeping things together’, ‘keeping up appearances’ and ‘keeping the party going’. There is also evidence of other factors: ‘gang and peer influence’ and ‘keeping going’. There was also some evidence for how fraudsters of privileged social classes enjoyed lighter sentencing regardless of the grave nature of the offences and implications to society. Mental health-related issues and associated cases reaffirmed problems surfaced as the main reasons for fraud in the late 1920s. However, there was no mention in the newspapers of a scientifically proved case that mental health was the primary driver of fraud offences. It is quite apparent that the perpetrators were not always the ‘active agents of their destinies’ (Coleborne, 2005: 97), and the motives were always pressured by factors beyond their control – an indication of a socially constructed crime. Overall, the motives for committing fraud indicated social struggles rather than greed.
In summary, there are various and different reasons given by fraudsters as defences in their court cases. The top three motives are being pressured to ‘keep things together’ for their families and being victims of drinking and drug abuse. Our data also emphasise the influence of bad associations, leading to being coerced and threatened to participate in fraudulent activities. The psychological states of the offenders were often highlighted rather than well-planned executions, even in cases that went on for many years before being discovered (see Arnold and Bonython, 2016; Lampe, 1991; Levi, 2006). Some cases reaffirmed Levi’s (2008) findings that financial offenders did suffer from lack of control and were irrational, but their continued fraudulent activities did not necessarily indicate premeditation. In conclusion, the evidence shows that fraudulent schemes during the period studied might be varied but were not so very much different from what we know today. Poverty, mental illness, social isolation, poor education and unemployment are still the root causes of crime, just as they were in the nineteenth century (Rice, 2012: 222).
Limitations and suggestions for future research
Our analysis is limited by the nature and extent of information reported by the newspapers during the period studied. In selecting the narratives of the cases to be included, we tend to be biased by our perspectives and might have missed more relevant and interesting details. By aggregating the fraud crimes, we hope to provide insights into the issues examined.
New Zealand has suffered three economic depressions: the Long Depression (1878–1895), the Inter-War Depression (1920–1940), and the Third Depression (1960s and 1970s) (Easton, 1980, 2010; Sutch, 1966: 37–46). According to Easton (2010), the 1878–1895 Long Depression was more severe in the second phase due to reliance on public foreign borrowing. In the 1880s, social hardships were marked by debts and bankruptcies, mainly due to land speculations in the 1870s. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the depression brought excessive debts, mass unemployment and the worst years of industrial unrest, political changes, the rise of trade unionism (Fairburn, 1989; Mein-Smith, 2012; Reeves, 1956; Reserve Bank of New Zealand, 2007; Temple, 2008) and people having to rely on charities (Easton, 2010; Mein-Smith, 2012; Great Depression, n.d.). The implications of the first two economic cycles for fraud incidence are unexplored although worth noting, but a direct causal relationship could not be found in the absence of comprehensive data. This fact remains a limitation to our study. We suggest that future research specifically examine selective court judgements during the depression years to explore whether there is any link between fraud incidences during a depression year.
Future research might want to focus on specific classes of crimes perpetrated by lower-class, middle-class and upper-middle-class societies by reviewing the court judgements. Court judgements would provide more information and the underlying factors for such deviant behaviours. Another line of inquiry would be to examine whether the rise in dishonesty and fraud was due to a decline in religious beliefs such as Christianity. This topic can be pursued by analysing discourses in religious-based media of communication, such as newspapers and magazines. Another interesting study would be to track the 10 ‘largest’ fraudsters and to determine whether those individuals remained in New Zealand or moved to cities, committed more fraud or became war heroes to contextualise their life stories and provide a window into the colonial society, its social dimensions, fraudsters and the social implications of their behaviour for their lives, family and communities. This study has shown that it is critical to understand the context of history, including the morality and values that shaped the society at the time, to better understand the subjects’ life experiences and what influenced their actions and decisions.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge Hema Bansal for initiating data collection from the database first, and we are deeply grateful to Resiana Rawinda for her dedication and assistance with the remainder of the project.
Copyright
Permission has been obtained from the National Library of New Zealand to reproduce images from Papers Past as per email dated 28 May 2020.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This study received MURF funding from Massey University (project no. 1000020629).
