The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-10-09 00:00:00

ue of the Law Times c

(is on the question, wheth

'be fol!owing
gaged

. .
in the affair can be prosecuted criminally :
Several correspondents have et:quired if such wholesale
plunder is not punishable by the criminal law. Let us
endeavour to answer them. It is not directly punishable,
Our disgracefully imperfect law of fraud makes no provision
against wholesale cheating, but only against small pitiful
obiainings of a loaf, or a gown, by false pretences. 'l'bere is
impunity for great thieves; the little ones only are tried,
convicted, and sent to penal servitude. Pick a pocket of 6,1,
and you are subject to four years' servitude ; rob the proprie-
tors of a bank of £50,000, and you may snap your fingers at
your victims. But although the secretary and directors of the
an I, instead of
Royal British Bank cannot be indicted directly for putting
cket, it would
the bank money into their own rockets, they may, we
ei
into
toof
Listh e
own nan kr
to,
Cameron from that of the directors. Mr. Cameron Was a
tthoimnka,kbee
thismade
intelligiblecrim inally
,e
mustresponsible
seivne
rautohtheercafseermof.
MB urt
.
sitesrvtaiini
andof thepu
tbaintk.i:ntT)ohtiaskeptoheekemt owneoyulodf
btehelabreaenikvf;rotora
be embezzlement.. The circumstances under which Mr.
anneron appropriated £30.000 of the mmeys of the bank
aro not, as yet, so minWely stated as topermit
preactetiivneg moneyinto
thefrtoirnli,
a judgment
to be formed if he wa.: ~
~:ilty of either of these offences. If
the directors gave him per of
to overdraw, that would
be a good defence. But if it
atoepausttoimt
was done without their pc!.
mission, obtained is ttic regular way, or if they litnited the
'vcaeded that amount;'

amoun

if he d

.-.,‘ Vi:Lnout their sanction, at any
y, be impossible. Wherefore, then,
, . ---,-.1 'night be maintained. The proof of the
authority to overdraw would be upon him, and that would,
probably, ;
not taken ?
that Mr. Cameron gave
Again, it appears
securities that were already mortgaged,
beyond their value.
If he represented these as good securities, and thereby ob-
•-nd advances, he might be indicted fur obtaining money
Now for the directors. They were in
..oesston of the money, and, according to the present
ect state of the criminal
.law, a man lawfully in pos-
,sion of Rroperty nann_c!tbe guilty. of stealing it; the sub-
who have pocketed so large a portion of the pro-
is this proceding
.eq.::rit appropriatton of it is only a breach of trust. Larceny,
therefore, could not be maintained. But it is said that the
the knowledge of the other directors
111 s of a private book kept by Mr. Cameron. If this
oe 53, and could be clearly proved, we-have no doubt that
d i,r-r(t
they, together with Mr. Cameron, might be indicted for a
conspiracy,Ar
~ e are also inclined' to think—but of this we
are not so confident as of the other cases—that all the
directors might be indicted for a conspiracy, in inviting and
c;°drisd so without
obtaining the subscriptions of shareholders by the false
representations which they put forth of the state of the
concern—proving, if it be possible to cio so, that they knew
the true state of affairs, or at least that the concern was not
as they represented it to be. Even if such prosecutions
should fail, they would be of the utmost service by way of
example and warning."

a exe:l

larc

e tences.