The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-25
wATCHMAN TURNED THIEF.

The Ulster County (N. Y Savings Bank
has been robbed by frightful defalcation
on part of its treasurer, who has been suf-
fered to cheat and deceive for years
directors that did not direct and bank ex-
aminers that did not examine. The
directors of this bank as late as the 18th
ult. certified that the bank had surplus
of $4,000. and recited in this certificate
list of securities the bank had in its vaults
without examining each security and veri-
flying the list. As matter of fact the
directors certified that the bank had secur-
tiles of which the defaulting treasurer had
long ago robbed the bank.
This savings bank treasurer; this watch
man turned thief; this heartless instru-
ment of suffering to the thoughtful and
thrifty poor belongs to class of rascals
that every honest man would like to see
whipped through the world. AS a rule
these fellows in whose custody the keys of
the bank become more formidable than a
professional burglars best kit of tools, lull
directors and depositors into false sense
of stupid security by playing the pipe of
maudln piety in the church and at the
corners Of the streets to be seen of men; or
vex the air with their incessant poundings
on the prohibition tom-tom; they seldom
fail to whoop it for morality in politics.;
while stealing the hard-earned savings of
the poor to float themselves into ill-gotten
riches. These cruel robbers of savings
banks will take the deposits of the poor up
to the day the bank closes its doors, know
ing that the institution is honeycombed
with holes. because in their greedy race
for riches they have gambled away the re-
sources of a trust that was created and
protected by the state primarily for the
benefit and security of the Woodworking,
saving poor.
The greatest evil wrought by such swim
dlers is the widespread distrust their crime
causes among ignorant and timid invest
ors, who, in their distress and dismay,
look with suspicion upon all trust COM
panies; upon even the sound and up
rightly conducted banks they have cause
to justly trust with their money. Such
men are the worst kind of public enemies;
they discredit one of the best possible
schemes for stimulating the industrious
poor to save and invest their surplus earn
lngs; they expose honorable business men
presiding over similar institutions to a
natural but unjust withdrawal of public
confidence. and STRIFE a severe blow at the
happiness and prosperity of the common
people.
This New York scoundrel. who has fair
ly hanged, drawn and quartered his saw
ings bank, was well educated at school
and in the church he never had his moral
sense dazed or blunted by drink; never
was assaulted by the temptations of trouble,
poverty and misfortune; he was well-to-
do, sober, well-educated, pious fraud who
for years deliberately stole the funds of his
trust and gambled them away in schemes
to win wealth, when he already enjoyed
ample comfort. The place tor such foes
of public safety and happiness is in
the penitentiary; there he could read the
Bible, MARBLE hymns in the nasal tenor
of the sanctimonious singer, pray and
talk temperance without any danger of
using all this excellent practice as screen
for villainy, behind which he plotted
the swindling of the poor that trusted him.
In the penitentiary he would experience
some of the misery he wrought among the
helpless, ignorant handwriting poor,
whose small savings he selfshly stole,
squandered or gambled away. His punish
ment would not restore the money he
stole, but it would be salutary warning
to men of his stripe, who assume to steal
and gamble away the resources Of sacred
trust.
But then IL this Waterman turned thief
was in the penitentiary today his friends
would be urging his pardon on the ground
that he was sick and had sore eyes, and
that prison life would shorten his days,
and all that kind of rot that is urged to
break the prison bars to those who have
eloquence or influence enough to unlock
the door of their particular pet convict and
sick swindler's cell. In China decapita-
ton is the penalty for such crimes. Is it
too severef The legal punishment of such
scoundrels is not always easily in