Beauty and the Bunco Man
“Three Years in a Dream. A Bunco Man Said to Have Hypnotized a Philadelphia Girl,” Religio-Philosophical Journal, June 25, 1887:6.
She Met Him at the Centennial Exposition and Claims to Have Been Married When Under Mesmeric Influence—Used While in this State to Assist a Companion of Steve Raymond and Charley Miller.
Mary Emily Babbington, a charming little blond with large blue eyes and a complexion all peaches and cream, applied to Lawyer William P. Swope, of Philadelphia, May 21st, for legal advice. The object of her visit was most peculiar. She sought to be relieved from the bonds of matrimony by divorce and at the same time to have a legal restraint placed upon her husband’s will-power. She told a most remarkable story and produced what appeared to be very strong documentary proof to support it. She was married, she said, in 1877 to William E. Babbington, believing him to be at that time a bank clerk. The marriage took place in New York and was, so the wife averred, a compulsory one. She became acquainted with Babbington in the summer of 1876 at the Centennial Grounds in this city. He then represented himself as the son of a prominent broker in New York and said he was spending his vacation in studying up the industries of the country as shown in the great Exposition.
One evening in July he invited the young woman, whose maiden name was Griffith, to accompany him to an ice-cream saloon in the vicinity of the Centennial buildings. He conducted her to a private parlor, and after the refreshments had been eaten conversation on various subjects ensued, finally drifting to mesmerism and Spiritualism. Babbington told the young woman that he was thoroughly up in both sciences and that from the first moment he saw her he knew she would make either a good medium or a good subject for a mesmerist. She banteringly replied that she did not believe him and dared him to prove the truth of his assertion. He instantly replied that he himself possessed mesmeric power and would, with Miss Griffith’s permission, exercise it then and there.
“For three years after that night,” said Mrs. Babbington, “I lived like one in a dream.”
This was the strange and almost incredible part of the woman’s story. On July 28, 1876, she accompanied Babbington to Hartford, Conn. She knew, she said, that she was travelling on a railroad and that she was leaving Philadelphia, but she had no power of her own to say whether she would or would not make the trip. Having arrived in Hartford, she was placed in a house and put to bed, where she slept for three consecutive days. When she awaked, she found she had lost nearly all recollection of her former life. She was visited every day by Babbington who treated her with the utmost respect and never made even a suggestion of an improper character. They left Hartford in September and travelled through different cities in the West until February, 1877, when they came East again and went to the city of New York. During this trip Miss Griffith never stopped in the same hotel with Babbington in any of the towns visited. The young woman claimed that during all the time between July, 1876, and February, 1877, she was in a hypnotic condition.
On Feb. 28th, Babbington took his subject to the house of a minister in New York and was there married to her. They took lodging on West 55th street. On the morning succeeding the marriage, the newly-made bride awoke to find herself in her normal condition. She could not realize that she had been so many months away from her home in Philadelphia. She distinctly remembered her first meeting with Babbington, the visit to the ice-cream saloon, the trip to Hartford and then the trip West, but it seemed to her like a dream. She burst into tears and begged the man at her side to tell her what had happened. Babbington seemed very much surprised at the sudden change in the woman’s mental state. He recalled to her the conversation that had taken place in 1876, and asked her if she did not remember her marriage. The question started a train of thought and she suddenly realized the truth. Her husband did not give her much time for reflection, for, she avers in her libel, he immediately placed her in a hypnotic condition by stroking her forehead with the tips of his fingers. Mrs. Babbington claims that she remained in this abnormal state until the latter part of 1879, when her husband, for some unknown reason, suddenly left her.
Ten days later she became herself again and went through all the horrors of her first realization of what had taken place since 1876. Her purse contained a few dollars, but how the money came there she knew not. She came to Philadelphia, and after a wearisome search succeeded in finding her parents, to whom she told her story, but very naturally was not believed. She lived quietly without hearing anything of her husband until Christmas Day, 1880, when she was alarmed and surprised to receive a letter from his bidding her to come to New York instantly and threatening her with dire vengeance if she refused to comply. Notwithstanding her remarkable experience the little woman was frightened into obedience. She went to New York and met her husband as directed in a resort for “crooks” on Twenty-ninth street, near Broadway. No sooner did she face him than he again exerted the mysterious influence which she claimed he possessed, and placed her again in his power. She was then induced to form the acquaintance of an elderly gentleman stopping at the Astor House, and induce him to visit her husband in a house on Bleecker street, the exact location of which she does not now remember. The strain on Mrs. Babbington’s nervous system after this had been accomplished was so great that she fainted, and upon her restoration to consciousness she found herself again in her normal condition.
She was seated in an inner room, the door of which was ajar. She saw her husband and two companions sitting behind a desk. The old gentleman stood in front of them, and there seemed to be some sort of a controversy in progress. She heard the old man exclaim:
“I have lost $2,000, and you are a set of scoundrels.”
She then saw him attempt to clutch one of the men by the throat. A terrible fight followed, and the old gentleman, who appeared to be a powerful man was beaten almost to death. Half frightened out of her senses, but with sufficient will power left to attempt to escape, the woman made her way through the rear into a small alley, thence to Twenty-ninth street. She reached a ferry to Jersey City, and while waiting for a train for Philadelphia was suddenly confronted by her husband, who ordered her to accompany him.
The command, she said, she was unable to resist, and she returned to New York. She begged and pleaded that she should not again be placed under that strained spell which she had no power to resist, and promised anything to remain in her natural state. Her husband agreed to this, but made her swear that she would obey him in all things. For nearly a year she endured a living death.
In that time she discovered through circumstances that daily came to her notice, that her husband was one of the gang of dangerous confidence men, chief among whom was Steve Raymond and Charley Miller, afterward killed by Billy Treacy. She solemnly declares, in her complaint, that she took no part in any of the numerous schemes to defraud with which her husband and his associates were connected, but on the contrary did everything in her power to wean her husband from his evil companions. In this case she was unsuccessful, for when she ever broached the subject Babbington immediately exerted his influence and made her unconscious.
Her mental and physical organism weakened under the terrible strain to which she was subjected and she became ill. She took to her bed and lay there for six months, at the end of which time a physician gave it as his opinion that she would not live another month. Babbington, who appeared to have a strong attachment for his victim, took her one day in a cushioned carriage to Jersey City and accompanied her to her home in this city. He placed her in her mother’s arms, kissed her good-bye and left the house saying she would never see him again. From the moment of his departure the sick woman seemed to gain strength. In three weeks she was on her feet, and in another month the color came back to her cheeks and she regained much of her former beauty. Since that time she has lived quietly, and although she watched the newspapers carefully, she could learn nothing of her husband’s whereabouts or the life he was leading.
On Sunday last while walking down Chestnut street, she nearly fainted as she saw Babbington turn the corner of Ninth in company with three men. Fearing that she would again be placed in his power she boarded a car and rode, she knew not whither, until her nervous fright had subsided. A consultation that evening with her parents resulted in the visit to Lawyer Swope’s office.
It is said that Babbington is one of the most expert bunco men in the United States, but as the name is probably assumed, it is impossible at this time to establish his identity.
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