Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-11-04

The city of Newark, N. j., has a broken
bank on its hands-the third case of banking
disaster in that city within a comparatively
short time, we believe-which, in the amount
of money involved, throws our Brattleboro
ruined bank affair entirely into the shade. On
Monday last it became known that the Me-
chanics' National Bank of that city, with
capital of $500, OOO a surplus of more than
100000, and deposits of 81, 400, 900, had
been completely ruined by its cashier Oscar
L. Baldwin, nothing but the banking build
ing, worth $4,000, being left. The bank
was one of the heaviest financial institutions
in New Jersey, and not suspicion was enter
tanned that it was not one of the soundest and
strongest. The stockholders will undoubted-
ly be assessed to the full limit prescribed by
the law-100 per cent of the amount held
and even then, it is said, the depositors will
not receive over 80 per cent of the amount
due them. In the amount involved this is
the worst case of defalcation and financial
ruin which has yet occurred in this country.
The financial reputation of Baldwin, the
cashier has until now been second to that of
no man in the state. He had grown up in
a boy, and they had implicit confidence in him
the old, old story For a long time the
president has been sick, and Baldwin has
practically had the unmolested management
of the institution. Baldwin's statement is
that about the year 1873 he began to make
loans to G. Nugent & Co., morocco manufao-
turers of Newark, without security and with
out the sanction of the directors. Having be-
gun, he was in the power of Nugent d Co.
and continued the accommodations, some
times losning them $50, 600 in one month, un-
til the total was increased to a ruipous amount.
Baldwin's private memorandum indicates that
Nugent IL Co. have overdrawn their account
$515, 900 in this year alone. There is good
reason, however, for believing that Nugent q
Co. did not get all the money, but that Bald
win has been throwing away funds in Wall
street Last Sunday, finding that the revela-
ton must come Baldwin called the directors
together and confessed that all that was left
of the bank was a mere shell. The directors
offered to subscribe $500, 600 to keep the bank
above water, but Baldwin replied that So, 600, =
600 would not do it, and the directors decided
TO suspend at once.
Ouriously enough, as Waite's pretended sum
on deposit with his New York correspondents
($7O,O 900 with Vermilye & Co.. was the means
of finally exposing his crime, SO Baldwin's
pretended deposit of a million and half in
New York, when he really owed his New York
correspondents $500, 900, finally drove him to
the wall. He knew visit from the bank ex-
aminer was coming, and, having been unable
to cover up the fact that he had no deposit in
New York, the exposure came. 1t would
have come year earlier had it not been for a
seemingly insignificant incident Mr.. Shelley,
the bank examiner, claims that in his exami-
nation last year he wrote to the Mechanics
National of New York for their account with
the Mechanics National of Newark, which, if
it had been rendered, would have exposed the
falsity of Baldwin's Bookkeeping. Baldwin
now says that he was in the New York bank
at the time the inquiry was made, and that he
took pains, as though casually, to offer to car