Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-02-22
Chicago Tribune Interview. ]

A resident of Chicago, whose long expert
ence in the examination of irregular &C
counts gives his opinion some value, ex-
presses his conviction that there is hardly
large establishment in tine city in which dis
honest practices do not prevail There is a
remarkable difference, he says, between the
conservative business concerns Of England
and Scotland and the dashing, happy-go-
lucky houses of America In the steady
business of Great Britain, where the son
succeeds the father and is trained in the
counting house from his early years, all the
details Of the Office are carefully elabor-
ated and no one can steal 5 cents without
being found out But here a shrewd man
establishes an enormous business without
giving any part of his attention to the rou.
tine of the office, and as his employees usually
receive a beggarly allowance it is scarcely
to be wondered that they add to their salary
by theft.
Much as should deprecate any attempt
to excuse the thief" said this man, II feel
no commiseration whatsoever for the mer-
chant or the banker who looks for honesty
in a clerk or cashier who is paid SS5 month
for handling 100000 year, without any
check or safeguard imposed upon him. An
employer who expects fidelity should reward
his servants according to the responsibility
Of place The loose and inadequate systems
Of some firms are amazing. do not believe
there is a large establishment in Chicago
where, if employed in a position Of trust, l
could not steal thousands Of dollars every
year.
There are several different kinds of defal.
cations which we often have 10 deal with
First, there is the blunderer, who takes ad-
vantage of a mistake to pocket the odd cash.
Suppose he has the pay roll to make out in a
house where fifty men are employed. That
duty is generally considered so purely me-
chanical that some subordinate employe 10
delegated to draw up the payroll He cred
its each man with his proper salary, but by
mistake makes the footing $500 instead Of
$675. The proprietor looks over the roll. OBJ
serves the correctness Of each item, takes
the footing for granted, and draws his check
for $3.50. The young man puts the weekly
stipend of each person in an envelope, finds
a surplus of SIS, and, discovering his error,
pockets that amount Then ne reflects what
a fool he has been to live on $50 a month
when by careful blunder every week
he might easily double his income. The
suggestion of accident is turned into a sys-
tenn, and he becomes regular defaulter.
The preservation of the pay-rollS o6sht, of
course, to be imperative, but as a matter of
fact he quietly destroys the evidence of his
crime, which is never suspected until the
drain is felt by the firm or his own style of
living betrays him. Even after he knows
himself to be suspected he will not stop his
thieving Having acquired certain habits
and associated himself with certain COM
panions he will not reduce his expenses, but
sets himself to invent some new mode of
cheating Fearing 30 betray himself by in
correct footings, he begins TO insert in the
payroll the names Of dead men," or those
no longer employed in the house. By this
ruse he succeeds in deferring the day of
Judgment
"The blunderer is harder to detect than
the systematic defaulter. A bNokkeeper
will sometimes enter all items correctly in
his cash book, but when he comes to post his
accounts will doctor the footings He will
enter a debit for general expenses with
some hieroglyphicS intended to particulariZs
the items of expenditure Instead of the
correct footing of S3lS6 81 he will write
S4lS "a, get his voucher, and pocket Sl00.
After a month or so, when the items are for
gotten, he will turn back and prefix the
figure to some one of them, making the
footing apparently correct. No one can ex-
plain his abbreviated notes but himself and
so he feels that he has covered up the tracks
of his dishonesty. He takes his chances of
not being called to answer for his accounts
during the month past
"The expert will readily detect the deceit
1t is impossible for man, after the lapse of
a month, to change the figures 81. 80 To Isl. so
without enabling practiced eve to recor-
nize the inserted digit. Generally the in
truding figure is dried with a blotter, while
the rest of the page has been allowed to dry
by evaporation When the plan of defalc-
tion is once made out the details can be fol
lowed with ease. 1t will generally be fourd
that the false entries occur at the same tirns
in each week or month, and we have only g
turn to that date to find the nevitable trars.
Of guilt.
IAN old trick is the use Of carbon paper to