The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1889-12-14
A TIMELY WARNING.

An instance of misplaced confidence
on the part of humble depOsitors of
money, such as have been frequent of
late, has just come to light In Cincinnati.
There is an organization in that city
known under the name of the ~New
Ohio Building Association which was
founded about ten years age under
promising auspices, and whose affairs
haye been conducted by directorate
of prominent citizens who have enjoy
ed the confidence of the members and
depositors.
The Treasurer of the association un-
Ill recent date was one VIM. l.. Pc
ters, and the Secretary was George II.
Topp, both pork dealers, and the latter
the notorious member of the Board of
Public Affairs.
Well, for five years, from 1882 to
1887, these two men Peters and Topp
managed between them the business
of the Building Association in their
respective capacities of treasurer and
secretary, and all that time they con-
trived by means OF peneilled and forg.
ed figures to ho0dwink the auditor,
who seems to have been a good, easy
going, unsuspicious sort of a genius,
into certifying their accounts to be
correct. But, all that time. all the
same, they were quietly but steadily
engaged In the work of helping them
selves from the associations funds
and having been retired from their
several offices of treasurer and secreta-
ry last year, II was only due to an ac-
cidental grubbing Of the new Troasu-
rer In Peters old accounts that tho
mischief came unearthed. The prcseut
Treasurer having noticed and reported
Irregularities In the entry Of some
back accounts, an expert was put on
by the Association to investigate its
financial status during the years that
Messrs. Peters and Topp were practi-
cally masters of oil they surveyed.
The result of the investigation so far,
for it has not yet been completed,
points to pretty extensive disaster, as
the defalcations Of the two financiers
have already been shown to amount
to between $4,000 and $4,000, and
the sum may be much further In
creased.
Now, we are not of those who are
given to alarmist views of things; but,
candidly, we can imagine no adequate
reason why the financial affairs of
many or most of the building and So
called benevolent associations with
which the country is flooded should
not, If they were examined, be found
to be In the same crooked and tangled
condition as the affairs of this Cincin-
natl building ASSOCIATION, which has
robbed some hundreds of poor people
of their little oil. Nearly all these as
sociations elbow their financial affairs
to be managed In the same happy-go-
lucky way as the one In question; they
have all such implicit confidence In the
unimpeachable integrity Of their Treas
urers and Secretaries that they relax
their vigilance and pretermit the
seemingly supcriluous function of
regular and rigid audit.
The State will, probably, one of
these years, stop In on behalf Of the
contributors to the funds Of such soci-
eties aud compel an occasional scrutiny
Of their funds by official examiners,
whose probity and expert ability will
be alike above suspicion. There are
so many thousands of unthinklng de-
positors in such associations, many of
which are transparent fakes, that il
becomes almost a duty, as 1t would
certainly be mercy, TO protect them
against thcir own gulliblllty.-N. o.
States.