The Nenana daily news., 1918-06-18

| looked for case instituted by Dis trict Attorney R. F. Roth against , Howard P. Curtis, late general store } keeper of the Alaskan Engineering commission was heard before U. s. } Commissioner R. s. Mcdonald last } evening, ending in the dismissal of ! the case.
 Curtis was specifically charged } with the embezzlement of 792 } pounds of meat, the property of the Alaskan Engineering commission the offense is alleged to have been committed in October last.
 ? The trial was commenced at seven p. m., at the commissioners court Assistant District Attorney Harry } Pratt conducting the prosecution. The accused was defended by Fer nand De Journel assisted by Roy , Douse.
 , c. H. Hall was the first witness } called by the prosecution. He testi-
 fled that he was at the time of
 the commission of the alleged crime
 working in the store department as receiving and forwarding agent,
 under orders of Curtis. A docu-
 ment purporting to define the duties of general storekeeper and the re- : ceiving and forwarding agent in de- tail, was read, admitted by witness and put into the records of the case. Another document, setting forth that commissary privileges were to , be extended to none other than employees of the A. E. commission only, with the sole exception of James Hagen, U. s. marshal, was also read and placed on record.
 MT. Hall described the cold storage
 building of the A. E. commission,
 including that portion of it rented
 to Waechter Bros. and testified to
 the fact that he was aware of the
 transaction involving the loan, in
 October last, of a quantity said to be 792 pounds of meat, and identi-
 fled the records produced showing the details of the loan made to Waechter Bros. He was also aware
 of the fact that the meat had not yet been returned by Waechter Bros. He told of his friendly re-
 lations with Curtis and of several
 private conversations he had had
 with him regarding the purchase by Curtis of number of Liberty
 Bonds. Cross-examined by Mir. De i Journel, Mir. Hall said that he
 understood Curtis to say that he
 had purchased Libertry Bonds to the
 extent of $3O,OOOO with the pro-
 ceeds of some successful speculation
 he had undertaken with money be- longing to his mothers estate.
 Henry Ehlen was the next witness
 for the prosecution. He said he was
 warehouse foreman during October
 last, and as such, had charge of and
 kept the keys of the cold storage
 warehouse. He went into detail in
 regard to the matter of the loan
 of 792 pounds of meat to Waechter
 Bros, which he said he personally
 delivered on the orders of his supe-
 rior and identified the records pro-
 duced of the transaction. In cross
 examination he testified to other loans having been made to Waechter Bros. prior to the loan of the 792
 pounds of meat in October, which they had returned. He confirmed
 the statements he made in the ex-
 animation in chief. Re-examined by Mir. Pratt, he said that the amount of meat loaned to Waechter Bros was contained in hind and 2 front quarters of beef, the weights of each being given separately. A re- ceipt for the meat issued by Waech-
 ter Bros. and the meat book in
 which the record of the transaction
 was kept by Ehlen was then com
 pared and found to tally with the