The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-04-16
The Late DefnIcation In the Comm ere ia
Bank of LOndon-llOyv Ii Was Effected.
From the London Times, Feb. 20

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To this ledger clerk seems TO have belonged the sole
duty Of transferring from the passoooks to the books of
the bark the accounts Of the customers The customers
Of course, examine their passbooks 1t was necessary,
rect. The managers tbs directors examine the books
Ct the bank It was that these also should be
relation very different No thought fex
aiming whether the passbooks really agreed with the
ledgers For twelve years one has looked over
that e,k's work and seen how he did it, if any
had done he would have found that, while the pass
bank ano M customers the ledgers represented fancfu
and unreal state of things of which nothing was true
but its statement Of the total Of the sums received and
paid Ii suppose that this clerk had thousand &C
counts to pass into his edger and that to each OF these
accounts on any given morning, Zoo was paid IN, we
pshed One of these accounts his own opened I'M
der fictitious hen he came to copy the thou
sand passbooks he deducted will suppose, elo each
from the f10O which each bad paid in aud he added
the aggregate Of these deductions, or 60 900 IT, his
own account. This is all he had to do He could
then draw out his CO. 500 as soon as he pleased,
by the simple process of signing checks with
the fictitious name in which he had opened
when in doubt as to customers balance, refer not 70
the passbook but to the ledger This process could be
repeated TO any extent. There only two preclu
tions necessary render detection almost impossible
the first was to manage that nobody but himself should
ever post the edgers or examine aem end the second
was never TO draw an accoun, down low as to incur
the risk that the cashiers after reference 70 the edgers
might refuse 10 pay check Ard it did go on for
years For eleven years has this guilty wretch, with
out the intervention of one holiday, stood from morn
ing TO night, guarding tho dreaded secret that lay
constantly before his eyes No wonder that at last
human endurance could bear more, and that 1T OF
paralysis struck him down. But for this catastrophe the
systematic fraud might have continued for years. 1t
might have gone until the fictitious account had sw Al
lowed up much Of the other accounts TO occasion
necessarily, at some moment, accidental discovery
There was, however always the possibility that those
BUILDING specuatons other desperate adventures might
have taken favor able turn, and might have enabled the
gradually blot out the fictitious account, and TO
restore The books to healthy condition Who can tell
how many of these things are going on In the nature OF
things 1t is only the failures that discovered Men
such these are in the full current Of affairs, always
hope that with the command Of money they can make
culstons which risks, and that they put
back the money they STEAL If they succeed We hear
no,hrg OF it, they fail, they sink deeper and deeper,
until they have lost which Is too large TO be
recovered Hitherto the ingenuity of the thief has been
greater than the caution Of the supervisor Even when
the Puinger fr set all the directors OF the different
bar king establishments inquiry, one thought OF
examining that ledger clerks books with passbooks.
Yet, he there day by day He never took holiday
Mareate Brighton Broadsti hrs had temptation
him. Year after year his hat hung the peg
at the hour. It would that this ought 10
have excited suspicion II was declared ne the moral Of
the eullnger frauds that your hardgorkng man, VII,
never wanted holiday was very likely 10 be thief,
for that such an exception 10 all human nature must
have some overconsraining reason to nail him to his
desk,