The Portland daily press., 1878-04-20
WASHINGTON.
The PractTcabili.y of Resumption.

The Practfcability Of Resumption.
WASHINGTON, April 19.-The House COM
mittee on banking had conference this fore
noon with John A. Stewart of the Trust Com
pany of New York, and j. d. Vermitgee of
New York on the question OF the practicability
of maintaining resumption. They were press
ed upon By Mr.. Ewing, but held infexbly that
resumption can be safely entered upon Jan. 1,
1879. and that with the present favorable out
look of good crops and the balance of trade in
tanned.
Republican Congressional Conference
Committee.
Representative Eugene Hale, Chairman of
the Republican Congressional Committee has
named the following as members of the COM
mittee provided for by the Republican caucus
to confer with the Senate committee upon the
course to be pursued by the Republicans in
matters coming before the present session of
Congress: Messrs. Hiram Price, j. A. Gar
field, O. ID. Conger, M. ii. Dunnell, William
P. Frye, G. L. Fort, j. M. Thornburgh, VIM.
Clafin, J. w. Dwight, Russell Errett and
Horace Davis.
Great Demand for the l-2 Per Cents.
1t is stated that the Rothschilds in London
desire to take ten millions of the A per cent.
bonds, and two Treasury agents left New York
yesterday with that amount of the bonds for
London to reopen the American bureau of the
Treasury at the Rothschilds.
1t is stated three millions Of a per cents
have been sold by the New York syndicate this
week.
Discovery of Forged Protests ON Claims.
There was a sensation in the House Appro-
priation Committee this morning. 1t arose out
OF statements of Treasury officials in connec-
nectlon with the payment of fraudulent claims
and the non-payment of others. The claims
are those technically known as charges and
commission allowance. These arose out Of a
law OF 1871, of relative damage allowance which
1AI
sons allowances IL per cent drawback was
allowed, and protests were required to be filled
with the invoices at the time, showing that
these claims were then made. Some two mil
lion dollars have already been paid and many
more claims are pending 1t is now discovered
that many of the protests attached to the pa.
pers in the paid claims in the Treasury were
forged and were of later date than the invoices,
The Treasury authorities claim to be able to
prove that these protests were forged and at
tached to the vouchers by clerks. in the New
York Custom House., who were paid large sums
for it. Voluminous details were submitted to
prove those charges
Special Agent Curtis disclaimed any imputa-
ton upon the merchants in whose favor the
claims were made Most of these fraudulent
protests were the work of lawyer named Al
fred Douglass, Jr, now dead, who had gone
about among merchants having such claims
and obtained authority to collect the sums
which might be found due them from the gov
erumout Oh ACCOUNT OF Claims OF tnlS cnarac-
ter. He was to receive so per cent Of the
amount recovered for compensation. Having
secured such an agreement he went to work to
supply protests in cases where they had not
been filed as required by law in some cases OBJ
tanning real signatures of clients to such pa
pers on the plea that signatures were re-
qnired in the course of legal proceedings and in
other cases by obtaining genuine signatures
from other documents and apendiug them to
protests prepared by himself and then having
the whole autographed and attached to the or
iginal entries in the custom house. In one or
two cases itappeared that the parties purport-
ing to have signed the protests were not in the
United States at the date of the papers, and in
one case protest was apparently signed by
foreign member of the firm who never had
been in this country.
The firms involved are Samson & Baldwin,
who were paid 5000. of which $25,00O it is
alleged were fraudulently obtained by Doug
lass. Strong & Smith were paid about $4,000;
T. B. Coddington & Co., $4,000; Wilson &
Brown, $11 900; Acker &5 Harris, $4,000;
Chamberlain Phelps & Co., $1,000; 9th er cases
which have been made up and forwarded to
the department for payment bat which have
not been paid are VIM. E. Dodge & Co., $17,-
499; NJ Mitchell, $7,747; JAS Isler, 1915: A.
Friedman, Ills.