Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1878 — A Grand Rascal. [ARTICLE]

A Grand Rascal.

They have got hold of a real grand rascal in Boston. His name is Plymouth White—called “Plin” White for convenience. This man has led a career of swindling and wholesale robbery all over the States and Territories for over twenty-five years, and now that he is safely in a Boston jail, his victims everywhere are hunting him up and identifying him and resolving to pursue him till death. .Among other victims are three wives. This man’s good looks caught the women, and his oily tongue and business fluency the men. And all these years “Plin” has lived in grand style, traveled much — often to keep out of the way of his hunters —and says that he has “ barrels of money” now with which to help himself out of jail and take a fresh start in his career of malefactions. All the favor he asks is that his “wives shall let up on him,” and not tell half they know. But one of them says there is no “letup” in her. He was first married to a rich farmer’s daughter of Saratoga, N. Y., in the year 1854. He sot $5Q,000 out of her father and rother at once. They found he had swindled them by misrepresentations. The brother committed suicide on this account. The wife, after much misery, bought a pistol, loaded it, and gave him warning that she intended to kill him if he aid not behave himself better. He paid no attention to her, and she shot at him twice and missed. This ended her communication with him. With another wife he went West. He next swindled a Denver, Col., firm out of SBO,OOO, and a member of the firm became so depressed about it that he committed suicide. The other member of the firm died soon after by poison. He, sent a daughter by wife No. 2 to Europe to receive her education. She is now about fifteen years old. Whenever his victims got too hot on his track, he was in the nabit of going to Europe to look after his daughter’s education. In this way he is said to have crossed the ocean sixteen times. He married a third wife a short time ago, and No. 3 is said to be living in New York. She has not yet come forward as a witness. He is said to have swindled one merchant in St. Paul, Minn., out of SIOO,OOO, another out of $9,000, and numerous smaller swindles are laid to his door. In 1862 he talked a Mr. Locke Winchester, of New York, out $lll,OOO. “Plin” White’s successes were in winning women and getting money without an equivalent. The number of his wives and the size of his piles of captured money proclaim him a grand rascal. His boasted “ barrels of money” left may not buy his freedom, even if his wives “let up” on him, or testify that he is one of the best and purest men alive. Wife No. 1 has had to work days-work for her living for many years. Nos. 2 and 3 appear to have been better provided for. At any rate, they are not so fierce in their denunciation of “Plin” White. White appears to be at the end of a busy life -Missouri Republican.