The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-12
NUMEROUS CLERKS
 ID BE EXAMINED
In Knight Trial Now on at
 Huntsville
MAY LAST A WEEK
Prosecution Has Not Yet Closed Its Case-Testimony Gives Jury an Inkling of Magnitude of
 Firms Operations

The trial of John W. Knight. charged
 with using the malls to defraud, was
 resumed in the federal district court
 this afternoon at o'clock, after court
 had been in recess since Saturday at
 o'clock. The prosecution has not yet
 closed it's case and there are many
 more witnesses yet to be examined.
 Among the number are several more
 clerks and of banks and brokerage and
 commission houses in New York, who
 had business dealings with Knight, l Yancey X Go. There is little doubt l the trial will consume the greater part
 of this week if not the whole. Tne
 testimony of several witnesses today gave the jury an inkling of the mag
 nitude of the operations of Knight, yancey & Co.,, both in spot cotton ard futures.
 Southern Agent Recalled T. c. Morrow, agent for the Southern
 railway at Decatur, was recalled by the defense at the opening of court. He was asked how many bales of cotton Knight, Yancey & Go. shipped out of Decatur
 over the Southern railway from Jan
 uary l to April 30, 1910. His answer
 was 595O bales.
 District Attorney Street asked the
 witness if any cotton had been shipped
 on any of the bills of lading that had been submitted to him for examination. He said mo- The bills bore the name of the witness, which he said he did not place there.
 Miss Beall, a stenographer employed by F. VanGerpin & Co.,. of New York identified several letters that were sub mitted to her by General Stone of the prosecution. A letter received by her firm from Knight, Yancey & Go. had her mark on it and she identified sev- eral letters that her firm had sent Knight. Yancey 6 Co.,, as having been written by herself The contents of the letters were not made known to the jury. Miss Beall in cross ex- animation did not know whether the letters had been sent by mail. Most of the business was transacted by tel egraph, she said, and there Is no one connected with the firm whose duties are to receive mail Mail was delivered to Vangerpin & Co.'S office by carrier and the clerk who happened to be nearest the door at the time would | take 1t.
 Cashier Identifies Papers
 J. W. B. Shackleford, cashier of the First National bank of Decatur identified several documents that he said were signed by John w. Knight He also iden tified statement signed by defendant and sent to VanGerpin & Co.,, giving the f1nan- cial standing Of Knight, Yancey & Co. ba x.-fn that this statement was false, that at that time, November g, 1909, the firm was in- VolYed to the extent of more than $2, ,000,- 000.
 E. F. Leather. public accountant of Memphis, was an interesting witness. He examined all the books and accounts of the failed firm, taking charge within ten days after the failure in April, 1910. He found the toial tangible assets to be ST. 126,- 316.79 and the liabilities $5,O9O,1 1884. There was a record in the office, he said, to show bills of ladjng on which cotton had been shipped and bills on which no cotton had been shipped The books showed that there were 546 bills of lading calling for 55,550 bales that had not been delivered. His record showed that the money drawn on these bills amounted to S406s, ,326S9.
 He was asked by the defense if he could tell how much cotton had afterward been delivered on these bills of lading and he said he could not Most of the cotton found among the assets of the firm, the witness said, was pledged, but there were $900,000 of unincumsered assets. Leather stated the Jailed firms losses on spot cot ton in twv seasons amounted to $l, ,500 900, exclusive of insurance. freight and broker age charges, etc., which would make the whole loss amount to practically $3,000 000 He said he checked the books and ac- counts of the firm over with the banks and they all checked out right and then he checked them with Van Gerpins daily accounts and found them correct. All transactions seemed to be correctly kept. Knights personal account checked out exactly right. The firms insolvency at the time of it's failure, he said, was s, ,263,s67.
 Van Gerpin Testifies
 F. VanGerpin, a foreign exchange dealer of New York, testified that for six years he had handled all the foreign exchange of Knight, Yancey & Go. In
 January, February, March and April of 1910, he stated, there were very many transactions, but never had knowledge that any of the bills of lading attached to drafts handled by him were forged until about 10 days before the failure. | The defense objected to the question, could he have sold the exchange if it
 had been generally known that the bills of lading were forged? This objection vas sustained. VanGerpin identified nu-
 merous documents that came from
 Knight, Yancey & Co. to his office by n ail, but said most of the transactions were by telegraph. Only one letter,
 dated March 30, 1910, ever contained bill of ladng, he declared. On being cross examined, MT. VanGerpin said that ne had never lost dollar in any trans action with Knight. Yancey & Co. | Doberiner, a foreign exchange clerk of the Merchants bank of Canada, identified a bill of foreign exchange in favor of Knight, Yancey & Co. which his bank purchased from VanGerpin. Doberiner was not cross examined. Postoffice h. | spector Keys was unable to identify any | of the papers submitted to him for ex- | animation and he did not know which of the bills of lading had been taken be- | fore the grand jury. He was with the district attorney when Receiver Lowell | turned over to them several bills of lading and letters bearing on the case | but had not marked them and had no means of recolecting them.