The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-01 00:00:00

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 18.
The news from America this week is a budget of
bank robberies, forgeries, failures, swindles, and
murders. The country has exceeded itself, and has
produced of each class of crime an example of the
most stupendous character. Of course, business is
deranged, credit is broken up, and every one is on
the look-out for a panic. The firm of Ketchum,
Son, and Company, of New York, has long been
known as a thrifty and sound private banking-
house. Morris Ketchum, the head of the house, has
for years been a shrewd, observing, and cautious
business man, who has devoted all his time to money
making, and has been very successful. His son,
Edward R. Ketchum, although regarded as avari-
cious, was the envied of all Wall-street. Both of
them during the war were intensely loyal, being
prominent members of the Loyal League, and fore-
most in branding as malcontents and traitors all
who raised a voice against the prodigality of the
Treasury and the misconduct of military opera-
tions. The eldest Ketchum was an intimate friend
of Secretary Chase, and his confidential adviser, and
it is reported, with strong probability of truth, that
Morris Ketchum was the real parent of the green-
back issues. The younger Ketchum was the cause
of the fail of the house. He went deeply into stock
speculations, and lost enormously. To make good
his losses he gradually abstracted from the fire-
proof room of the firm the stocks and bonds de-
posited there as collaterals for loans. He was deeply
involved in the gold speculations of the day, and
some two months since applied at the Bank of New
York to open a gold account in the name of Charles
Graham and Co., well-known brokers in Wall-
street, whose business he managed temporarily.
The account was, of course, opened, and young
Ketchum received a check-book containing 5,000
bank gold checks, each for $5,000. This book re-
presented the enormous sum of $2,500,000, and,
of course, gave him unlimited command of money.
The manner in which the gold business is carried on
in New-York is very simple. To avoid constant
handling of the gold it is deposited in bond, and is
transferred from seller to • buyer by means of these
checks. To make the transfer complete, the signa-
tures of the bank teller and register, the drawer of
the check, and sometimes the endorser, are neces-
sary to be affixed to the check, and one would sup-
pose that this was ample protection against fraud.
But young Ketchum surmounted these obstacles,
and for over two months forged all the names to
the checks, and raised money on them. Charles
Graham and Co. were ignorant of his operations,
yet so careless were they that they received over
$250,000-worth of his check, with their own forged
signature attached, without recognizing the fraud.
The Bank of New York received a similar amount,
never discovering the counterfeited name of their
teller. Ketchum continued his operations until the
14th of August, when, finding he could carry his
enormous losses no longer, even by forgeries, he ab-
sconded, taking with him $60,000 in greenbacks.
Before departing he left a letter for his father, in
which he admitted his crime, and asked his father to
provide for his wife and child, very coolly saying
that he had provided for himself ! Like all our de-
faulters, he will, no doubt, endeavour to escape to
Europe. Of course the house of Ketchum, Son, and
Co. failed, and Charles Graham and Co. suspended
immediately afterwards. Graham and Co.'s loss is
placed at $280,000, while the loss of Ketchtun & Co.
is said by the elder Ketchum to be $5,000,000. lie
announces his ability to pay 50c. in the dollar, and
both houses have made assignments for the benefit
of creditors. The Bank of New York will be able
to tide it over, its loss of $250,000 being more than
covered by the earnings of the past six months.
Of course this gigantic swindle in New York has
broken up all business arrangements, and the panic
is extending all over the country. Every man looks
upon his neighbour with suspicion, and from all
quarters there are rumours of new " defalcations."
The appetite for excitement which the war stimu-
lated so highly is being amply gratified. In addi-
tion to Ketchum, P. E. Mumford, another New
York broker, has swindled by fratlulent checks to
the amount of $28,000; and as if the West were de-
termined not to be outdone in rascality by Lhe East,
on the heels of these enormous frauds have come to
us detailed accounts of gigantic swindles that have
been perpetrated upon the revenue by the Western
distillers. A tax of $2 a gallon is levied by the
Government upon all the whisky and " high wines"
manufactured in the United States. Of course, so
onerous a tax puts every one's invention at work to
evade it, and so successfully has it been done that
for some time past whisky, that is supposed to be
taxed $2 per gallon, has been selling in the market
for $1 75c. to $1 90c. The Government organised
a detective system to discover the frauds, and the
entire West was examined. Thousands of barrels of
whisky and "high wines" were discovered that paid
no tax, and they were seized and confiscated. In
Illinois the forfeitures reach $700,000. In St. Louis,
St. Paul, Chicago, Dubuque, and all through every
Western State, nearly every liquor manufacturer and
dealer is implicated. Many have runaway, and cannot
be found, and their effects have been seized to await
contingencies. The strangest possible hiding-places
were selected for the whisky barrels. In one instance
425 barrels were concealed in coalpits, the mouths
of which were walled up, and the barrels inside
embedded in earth and coal. Smuggling from
Canada has been carried on to an enormous extent,
and so great have been the frauds, that it has been
demonstrated that, while $28,000,000 were collected
during the last fiscal year, when the whisky tax
was $1 50c., not more than $12,000,000 will be
collected in the current year, although the tax has
been increased to $2. The consumption of whisky
in the United States is about 80,000,000 gallons
annually, and this tax should produce $160,000,000,
instead of the paltry $12,000,000 that will be col-
lected. The enormous frauds and the small amount
of tax collected are striking commentaries on our
revenue system. Whisky is taxed too high, and
though one half a man's stock is annually confis-
cated, he will still reap an enormous profit if he de-
frauds the Government out of the tax on the other
half. If he is honest, and pays the tax on all, he will
lose money, and had better abandon his business.
Connecticut, it seems, is emulous of the fame of her
New York neighbours, and although she cannot
produce a financial crash of hugeproportions, having
exhausted herself by the Townsend Savings bank
swindle at Newhaven, she does what is worse, and
gives to the general budget a singularly horrible
railroad accident. On August 15 a freight train was
disabled near Bridgeport, on the fiousatonic River
Railroad, and a "mssenger train following was
com-
pelled
to stop and back towards Bridgeport. About
this time some of the railroad officials, who were
experimenting with a new engine, came rushing
along the road from Bridgeport, and met the pas-
senger train. The engine struck the hind car, split
it in half, passing through:giniet and
was intoatopp the second car;
the boiler
g
and then, just as the
;.,1 the midst of the Passengers,
scatterin
their mangled bodies and the fragments of the car
on all sides. A more diabolical affair can scarcely
be imagined. Twelve passengers were killed out-
right-11 were so dangerously wounded that they
are not expected to survive, and 15 others were
scalded and severely bruised. Scarcely a pas-
senger in either of the cars escaped without in-

jury, and although the horrible nature of the
affair has made every one's blood curdle, it

will be forgotten, as every other crime in
this-country is, and no one will be punished for
causing it. The next sensation that arises will con-

sign the Housatonic Railroad slaughter to oblivion.
American politics are fast becoming a subject of
deep.interest, and in a very short time we shall
again be in the midst of the turmoil of an election

contest. Negro suffrage will be the great dividing
line of parties, and the reconstruction policy of the
President will be the shibboleth that tests the true
friend of the Government. The President will not
falter in punishing any office holder who doernot

say " amen" to his policy. In New York the Cus-
tom-house is filled with the bitterest Radicals, who
advocated negro suffrage, and condemned Johnson's
reconstruction policy a little too long. The collector
and naval officer have just been turned out, and the
subordinates have discovered, to their great sorrow,