Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/493



Inattentive have little idea to what heights of success blackmailing mounts; of how rapacious and successful are blackmailers who systematize their terrorizing. What large sums are "bled away" by them are shown somewhat in such instances as the famous case of an official of the Kehrmann Bank, Berlin; and a similar recent one—of a distinguished European professor. Both of these were heavily mulcted. But in January, 1908, there came before the Assises of Munich, a case known as the "Bürkl-Wölfl Case" which is almost unparallelled in the records of its class. It is also interesting as -an example of what may be called blackmail by second-hand mechanicism—a frequent device. In outline it is as follows. As far back as 1886, an attorney of Munich named August Bürkl, had an intimacy of equivocal colouring with a youth named Götz—beginning when Götz was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Bürkl denied this explicitly—of course—on his oath, during his testimony, and it was tactfully kept from incriminating him. It lasted some years. Bürkl (unmarried) was very rich and very timid. He dreaded any sort of scandal, because of his profession, his social station, and his great affection for his aged, mother and his other family-connections.