Daily Iowa State Democrat. [volume] (Davenport, Iowa) 1856-1859, 1858-03-23

The defalcation In the Union Bank cans
ed some conversation last weak. and rave
rise to the. in nmilar cases, usual am0upt
Of secondhand wisdom in rslstion "a the
management Of banks in general Il does
not appear, however, that the case OF itself
was other than systematic ernbezzlemeut
OF the funds Of an employer. during q series
OF years, concealed by q laborious process
OF false entries, eloaked by "the utmost cor
fidence' entertained by the bank authori-
ties in the delinquent The discovery of
the process employed, however, explains TO
the customers Of the banks many difficulties
that have rom time to time occurred there
in their individual accounts The confeder
ate Of the teller was Mr. j. ii. Mott. a re-
lative Of the person Of the came name Who
figured in the knickerbocker Bank explos
ION some time since 1t appears that the
bookkeeper III Otherson. when Nett onened
an account at the bank, credited it with f;c.
ticious sums, which always made it appear
good when checks were presented To
make the general deposit account of the
bank balance the sums wrongly credited 10
Mott were deducted from the sums which
should have been credited to other parties
Thus if Mott was credited with $4,000. n
portion, say 81 600. would be deducted from
the account of A; IS 900 from that of Il
and the balance from Z. It is obvious that
if either of these last accounts was drawn
down closely, that detection would seem 10
be inevitable To prevent that the most
constant vigilance in changing the charges
from one to another was necessary. A single
days absence would be fatal. Neverthe
less detection was often imminent, and the
customers Of the Union Bank have frequent
ly had their checks met with the rebuff
account overdrawn,' when they knew that
the balance to credit was ample Com
plants on this subject if made with energy.
have been met by u lecture from the officers
on the subject of want of respect to the
bank No doubt corporation "withou,
a body to be kicked or soul to be damned, I"
is q very respectable institution, anduteige
officers a very high, lofty and magnificent
race of mortals, especially when money is in
demand. even if they sham meekness in
times of abundance but it does seem to be
the case that mistake more than once oc-
| curing in the accounts of individuals should
be entitled to a very searching investiga.
ton into its causes, that no superficial ex-
PLANTATION as to its origin should suffice. A
person who makes so important a mistake
as TO omit the proper credit in an account,
or who carelessly enters it to the wrong ac-
count, requires that his work should be sub
mitted to the closest scrutiny. if for no other
purpose than to detect other possible errors.
The plan pursued by Brotherson is not new,
nor are false entries SO uncommon, but that
in bank administration suspicion attaches
to the employee who is too attentive to his
I IPSk The OccaRinual ahSanna ne o1arl,
for whatever reason assigned, is taken as an
evidence that he IS not afraid to trust his
work to another and the most experienced
bank presidents encourage occasional relax
alton. Cases are familiar in bank circles
where the health of clerks, bound like gal
ley-slaves to their desks by the chain OF
crime has broken down under the Joint eff.
forts of conscience and confinement. It is a
! strange state CT affairs when attention to
business draws suspicion upon the clerk.