The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-28 00:00:00

RAILWAY BILLS.

Yesterday, in Lord Redesdale's Committee, the
Navan and Kingscourt Bill passed with special
amendments; the Surrey and Sussex Junction Bill,
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bill, and the Mold
and Denbigh Junction Bill were passed without
amendments. In the committee held in Room D,
the Great Western Bill and the Rhymney Bill were
adjourned. In the committee held in the Painted
Chamber the London and North-Western (New
Works, &c.) Bill was adjourned ; the North Staf-
fordshire Bill was passed with special amendments ;
and the Wolverhampton and Walsall Bill was ad-
journed. In a fourth committee room the Midland
and Glasgow and South-Western Companies Bill
and the Midland Bill were adjourned. The Blyth
and Tyne Bill was passed with special amendments.
In the case of the East Gloucestershire Bill the
opposition was withdrawn, and the bill committed
for Friday.
In the House of Commons committee, Group 12,
the London, Chatham, and Dover Bills were ad-
journed until to-day.

THE GREAT FORGERIES ON THE LEEDS

BANK.

Yesterday, again, Mr. Thomas Edgelcy, a mer-
chant in Sermon-lane, City, who stands charged
with forging and uttering bills of exchange to the

amount of £lOB,lBO odd, with intent to defraud the
Leeds Banking Company, surrendered to his recog-
nisances, amounting in all to £4,000, before the Lord

Mayor, at the justice-room of the Mansion-house, to
undergo a further examination.
Mr. Poland (instructed by Messrs. Freshfields
and Newman) again conducted the prosecution ;
and Mr. Sleigh the defence.
Mr. George Chandler, clerk to Messrs. Coleman,
Turquand, and Co., the official liquidators of the
Leeds Bank, was recalled, and said the amount of
the promissory notes drawn by Van Cleeff to the

order of Watts and Co., and discounted by the
Leeds Bank, and which remained unpaid on the
10th of November, 1863, was £32,803 10s. Those
notes were retired by the proceeds of Maydampeck
Forest bills, with two or three exceptions. The
amount of Maydampeck Forest Company bills en-
dorsed by Watts and Co., and due on the stoppage
of the bank, was £48,613 lls. The total amount
of the Alaydempeck Forest bills made to the order
of Watts and Co. was £67,786 175., and of the
proceeds of those bills £32,803 odd was used to re-
tire bills of Van Cleeff as they became due,
and £19,173 6s. V) retire bills of the

Forest Company, making together £51,976,
which, deducted from the £67,786 odd, left

a balance of £15,810 for discount, commission, and

general purposes of Watt's and Co.'s business. The
bills of the Maydampeek Forest Company, payable

to the order of A. Teale and Co., amounted to
£84,820 6s. The proceeds of these went to retire

Van Cleef's bills, amounting to £29,518, which had

been endorsed by Teale and Co., and which were

running on the 10th of November, 1863, and also to
retire Maydampeck Forest bills which fell due to the
amount of £25,252153., making a totol of £54,770
155., which, deducted from the £84,820 65., left
£30,049 lls. for the expenses of discount and general

purposes of the business of Teale and Co. The let-
ter-book of Edgeley and Co. could not be found.

Every other book of the firm bad been found excep'

that and a clasped ledger.
Mr. Edward Greenland, late manager of the Leeds
Bank, and who had been brought up to give evidence
on a habeas corpus from the House of Correction at
Leeds, was called by Mr. Poland. He said—ln 1840
I became the manager of the Bank, and continued so
until it stopped payment on the 17th of Sept., 1864.
I first became acquainted with the defendant, Mr.
Edgeley, about 1860. lle was then carrying on
business in London in the name of Thomas Edgeley
and Co. Some little time after that he established a
business in Leeds in the name of E. 11. Watts and
Co., and that firm opened an account with the
Leeds Bank—a regular account for discount and
drawing. The firm of Alfred Teale and Co. had
also an account with that bank. It was opened dur-
ing the panic of 1857. Some time before 1862 I
discounted bills for Van Cleeff, whom Mr. Edgeley
had introduced to me. Those were trade bills
drawn by Van Cleef, on a third person, a
foreigner. Edgeley was with Van Cleeff when
discounted,them. Before I discounted for him I had
not discounted any of his bills for Watts and Co.,
or Teale and Co. I first saw Van Cleeff and
Edgeley together in 1860 or 1861. Edgeley, whom
I had known well before, introduced him to me as a
respectable man--a man of property, and in a large
way of business as a merchant in France. After that
I discounted bills for Watts and Co. and Teale and
Co., drawn by Van Cleef, in favour of those firms.
I think about that time something was said about
the forest, but I cannot say what it was. The bills
increased very considerably after the first year. I
saw Edgeley on several occasions, and he explained
as a reason for the bills having increased that the
outlay fur the forest was great, and that the returns
of the timber were delayed. I think I only dis-
counted bills once or twice for Van Cleeff himself.
The bills, four in number, produced are some of Van
Cleeff's, of which I have spoken. They are endorsed
Teale and Co., and I discounted them for that firm.
That was in 1862. The bills I discounted for Watts
and Co. were similar in form. Before November,
1863, Edgeley told me he had been out in Servia,
and
i gave of the forest, saying the
wastinberme
ofagdreeastei.ipvatliuoen, and that he should have
to go again. He said the timber could only be cut
when
wasdown, which would be at the fall
f then thee a y p
About the end of 1863, I think, I had
o esra.
a conversation with Edgeley, and he suggested a
change in the form of the bills. He spoke of the
forest in glowing terms, and said a company was
being formed to get it out of Van Cleeff's hands, by
whom mismanaged. The members of
h
were to be himself and Teale and some
French firms. He hoped also to attract English
the company
it had been
capital into the business. That was the purport of
what he said. He once showed me a document which
he called a concession of the forest of Maydampeck,
and that he did to show me that property was in
their hands, and that there was plenty of it He ex-
plained that he wanted to take it to the forest or to
someplace to have it registered by the Government,
and I gave it back to him. No other document was
left with me as security for the discounts. Towards
the end of 1863 the form of the bills was changed.
They were drawn
on behalf of the Forest Com-
pany, and signed first by one Desire, then by Dinelli,
and lastly by Devillers, whom I presumed to be the
managers. lam 72 years of age, and I have had
five months' prison discipline and diet. 1 cannot
speak accuratelown folly. When
yas to names and dates. I have,
besides, on my own mind the remembrance of my
I first discounted Van Cleeff's
bills nothing wassaid about a forest company, and
I was not then aware he had become a bankrupt.
When I discounted the tills for Watts and Co. and
Teale and Co. I had not the slightest idea they
were prepared in
London. They were all ante
dated, and I
assumed they had come from May-
dampeck. I had unfortunately too much confidence
in the parties, and thought the bills represented
property belonging
to the Forest Company. I
thought, too, that E. Devillers, by whom they pur-
ported to he signed, had been placed there to man-
age the forest. It I had known the bills were pre-
pared in London by Bertrand, the clerk of Edgeley,
them. I had great confidence in Mr.
or
rdgbey Edgeley himself, I should not have dis-
countedley, and also in Mr. Teale, whom I knew to be
a man of large
property in Leeds, including two
mills, a warehouse, and other property.
Being cross-examined by Mr. Sleigh, witness said
—.Teale was a wan of great reputation in Leeds as a
clothworker, and a man of property besides. In
addition to his mills he had large private property.
I could not exactly say when I first saw Van Cleeff,