Arizona republican., 1908-05-29
UNION BANKS
 SUIT BEGUN
To Recover on MCDOweII' S
 S2O,OO0 Bond
The Former Cashier Him.
 self Put On the Stand.

| of the Union Bank and IruSt company against the Title Guaranty and Surety company of Scranton, Pa, was begun in district court yeserday morning. This is an action to recover $2O,000 the 1 amount of the bond of J. l.. Mcdowell
 the defaulting cashier of the bank whose embeZzlements it is alleged ag-
 gregate s21,SS215.
 The plaintiff was represented by l Armstrong and Lewis and the surety company by Judge Jamison and Judge C. F. Ainsworth.
 When the case was called Judge Jamison asked for a continuance on the ground that he was physically | weary He said that he had just re- | turned from Prescott where he had been engaged in a hard fought case ! to which he had so devoted himself that after it was over he found him. self short seven pounds in weight. A lawyer sitting by when this statement was made asked: Did Ainsworth get it?" In the Prescott case the attor- torneys who are together now for the defense were on opposite sides. Judge Jamison got the judgment, whoever took on weight
 
 denied and the work of securing a jury was begun. That occupied all the i forenoon and the afternoon was spent by the plaintiff in getting the case connected together, over the most l strenuous objections of the defense. 1 Nothing was allowed to go in without ! objection. There were first introduced a lot of letters which had passed be- ! tween the plaintiff and the general 1 agent for the west for the surety com pany. This correspondence extended from the beginning until the final notification by the bank of .McDowelTs ! shortage. The first letter on this sub 1 ject referred to a telegram sent about September II of last year when the bank people believed for the first time that something was seriously wrong. | The letter stated that the amount of the shortage if any, was not then known. Efforts had been made to communicate with McDowell who was | then on the coast but he could not be | located. The surety company was in | formed by this letter of all that the ! bank knew of the situation at that | time.
 The reply to this letter from the general agent stated that he hoped | for the good of his company, for the | good of Mcdowell and for the good of the bank that it would turn out that nothing was wrong.
 After some other letters, in Decem- l Der, the bank had learned how it stood with relation to Mcdowell and sent an affidavit of loss a copy of Narfi fD items of loss had been collected to- gether by J. George Hilzinger who spent couple of weeks in going over the affairs of Mcdowell. The evidence of MT. Hilzinger was afterward per | petuated" but that was after all not necessary, for he is now here in per son as witness.
 The affidavit shows that the short age occurred in the accounts of the bank with it's various correspondents | The greatest discrepancy was one of more than $11,000 in an account with l the First National Bank of New York. | There were other much smaller dis crepancies in other accounts with this bank.
 There was one difference of more than S6000. with the First National Bank of Los Angeles and still other Items of smaller difference with this bank. Something like $500 had been realized by Mcdowell in the dealings | of the bank with the Anglo California Bank of San Francisco. A difference | of some hundreds of dollars in the ac- count of the Consolidated National Bank of Tucson helped swell the | grand total. There were some dis | crepancies of minor amount in pass | books.
 Late in the day. Mcdowell who since his sentence of four years at Yuma has been held here pending this trial was put on the stand. He had little 1 of the appearance of a convict. He was much more like an alert business man. His answers were prompt and so far as the examination had gone were illuminating. He said that he 1 entered the service of the bank in No- vember 1904 and severed his relation with it in August of last year. He | identified several of the books, among them the ledgers which were ruled out on the ground that they were not books of original entry. Near the close of his examination for the day some forty statements issued by the National Bank of New York in its &C., count with the Union Bank and Trust company were presented.
 As the examination neared it's close the attorne-s for the defense were ap- preaching those statements whose lshowing must have differed widely from the account as it appeared in the books oe the plaintiff
 The trial was preceded by the usual opening statements. MT Armstrong described the swindling as an espec- tally smooth piece of work, which no reasonable exercise of diligence would have detected. This statement indi- cated that the plaintiff was laying the ground work for a refutation of any charge of contributory negligence that the defense might put forward