Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-19
H0EY'SSAD DOWNFALL
Points a Financial Moral and Adorns
a Tale Only Too Common.
HE RESULT OF BAD PRECEDENT.
Breaches of Trust Are Too Frequent, and
Should Be Punished,
WHETHER RESULTING IN LOSS OR NOT
rsrEc1AL TELEGRAM TO THE prsp.rcu

reviews the financial and speculative situa-
tion for to-morrow's Stna, as follows:
The most sensational event of the week
in the financial world has undoubtedly
been the revelation of frauds upon the
Adams Express Company, perpetrated by
It's late President. The item involved OF
the greatest magnitude is the sale to the
company at an exorbitant price of shares of
stock which the President, aided by the
Vice President and two outside conteder-
ates, had purchased for a comparative
trife, but, in addition, another transaction,
involving the deliberate appropriation by
the culprit to his own use of money belong
ing TO the company, has also been discov-
cred, and there are well authenticated
stories of series of other frauds, which, in
the aggregate, amount to very large sum-
Arguing from the known to the unknown,
there is room for suspecting that thorough
investigation may bring to light further
facts of a similar character and greatly
swell the sum total of the peculations. The
painful impression produced by these dis
closures was deepened by their coming soon
after the detection of the robbery by the
officers of the Kingston Savings Bank, and
in the management of the keystone Bank,
Of Philadelphia.
FAITHLESS TO TRUSTS.
In both these instances men in whom, like
the President of the Adams Express Com
pany, the most implicit confidence was
placed, and who were invested with the
greatest official authority, were found want
ing in integrity and faithless to their trust.
Unlike him, however, they had the grace to
conceal their misdeeds as long and as skill
fully as possible, whereas he seems not 10
have had any sense. of his guilt. Indeed,
il might never have been exposed but for his
cynical Gvowal of it upon the witness stand,
in a suit brought against him by one of his
confederates, toward whom he had proved
himself as devoid of honesty as he had been
toward the corporation Of which he was the
head.
Besides this affair, the week has witnessed
the discovery of the peculations committed
bvthe confidential clerk of Kennett, Hop
kinS & Co, which were effected by merely
commonplace fOrgeries of Endorsements of
checks, aud by thefts of certificates of stock,
rhe whole amounting TO a comparatively
small sum.
ANOTHER CASE IN LONDON.
From the other side of the Atlantic, too,
we see an announcement of Il defalcation in
the River of Platte Bank, of London and
Buenos Ayres, which is now asserted to in
voIve only SIS, 900 instead of the 81, 600, 600
reported four DAYS ago. The most impor-
tant circumstance connected with the rob-
berry Of hennett, Hopkins & Co. is the
apparent reluctance of the firm to face the
music and their delay in acknowledging
their responsibility TO their customers for
the acts OF their subordinate.
l..
2 most lamentable want of business honor
in refusing promptly to refund them money
il received upon the forged Endorsements.
1t is very easy, but entirely useless, to in
dulge in denuncation of crimes like these,
and in lamentation over the degeneracv of
the age which has made them possible For,
while they NAV be new in form and NAV be
the immediate product of comparatively
modern circumstances, they are as old in
principle as all the thefts and peculations
which have been committed since the be-
ginning ofth world.
MAN NATURALLY A SAVAGE
In The midst of the luxury and refinement
of our civilized society we are too prone to
forget that man is at bottom a savage, and
that he only covers over and represses his
natural savagery by g self-control, which
fortunately. with the vast majority of us
has become habitual, bu5 with very con-
siderable minority frequently seen STILL in |
the cunning appropriation of property not |
their own.
Just as the savage starts out in the morn |
ing to win his dinner with his bow and |
arrow, or falling these, by the traps and |
Strategems, so thousands of civilized men |
look upon the good things of this world as 1
their lawful prey, irrespective of their |
ownership, and to be Won by any means at |
their command.
Unfortunately for them, society long ago |
came to the conclusion not to permit this |
marauding upon private rights, and it re- |
gUltes it with Imprisonment and other pun /
ishment, besides fixing the stigma of its |
reprobation upon those who indulge in it. |
But the propensity to it is latent in every |
one as the germs of smallpox and scarlet !
fever lurk in infected clothing, and, like |
them, it develops itselS whenever circum- |
stances are favorable.
BATTLING AGAINST THIEvERY.
Religion, morality and civilization in gen.
eral have been for wears endeavoring to ex- |
tirpate it, but they have, as we see, sue
ceeded only in so far repressing it as to
make property and life nearly, but not alto
gether, safe agains. depreciation and at
tack.
What we most need to do to prevent the
recurrence of breaches of trust like those
which / have mentioned is not to waste our
energies in denouncing and lamenting them,
but seriously to consider how, by strength
cnlng the forces that repress them, we
may make their commission more difficult
Obviously, the punishment dealt out by the
criminal law, insufficient as it is, cannot be
rendered more effectual by additional legis-
lation. Nothing but a habit of thinking,
which shall make the crimes to be instinct
ivelv, as it were, abhorred, will prove
really efficacious in restraining men from
them, and to the strengthening and confirm
ing of this habit we may usefnlly address
our efforts. And as morality, like charity,
begins at home, so each of US can do his
little toward the desired result by setting
the example in our own conduct, and in our
treatment of the conduct of those nearest
to US.
MANY EXAMPLES BEFORE THEM.
do not in the least extenuate the enor-
nifty of the offense of which the President
and Vice President of the Adams Express
Company and the officers of the other de-
pendent corporations have been guilty, but
1 cannot help thinking that if it had not
been for the precedents established by other
men in similar positions of trust, and who
have not vet lost their regulations for
honesty, they might have less easily fallen.
The President of the Adams Express
Company is convicted of having bought
property at a low price and sold it to his
at a low price, pocketing for his
own benefit the difference. For doing this
he has been deposed and expelled, and is
not only sued for the restitution of his i'll
gotten gains, but is threatened with crimi-