New Britain herald., 1924-10-30
YOUTHS MORE IN
 CRIME I|MELIGHT
Surety Company Speaker Notes Increase in Juvenile Criminals


 Although only ono man in 100 will steal, that man. If under-bonds has no chance to get away because the surety company never tets up until he pays the penalty for his mistake, according to Dr. B. F. Battin of New York, Wce-president of the Na- tional Surety company, in an address delivered to the Rotary club at its noon meeting at the Burritt hotel today. /+
 'Dr Battin opened his address by stating that surety is often mistaken for insurance or banking, when in reality 1t is neither. He said 1t is a guarantee of honesty on the part of those holding responsible posi- tions.
 He said insurance Is but a matter of few hundred years while surety gees back to Old Testament times, citing as an illustration the holding by Joseph in Egypt of his brother Benjamin as surety. He also said 1t was recognized by Shakespeare and gave the demand by Shylock for his pound of flesh as ar illustration. He said group surety started in 1720 when a concern in England guaran- teed the honesty of household ser wants. Tt is easy to trust person of deeply religious convictions" he said, but even the clergyman must be watched" He told a story of a man prominent in church work who stole $60,O0O and gave $3o.0O0 of 1t towards building a new church and the balance towards the pay of va rious ministers.
 He said the company never lets up on man who has fallen until he has paid for his error, and that often little personal habits of which he knows nothing &hatever will be. tray a man, when he feels perfectly safe.
 HeNtold of another illustration oI a man who stole money and disap. peared. Agents of a surety company followed him and located him in Nicaragua, where he was suffering with a severe attack of yellow fever. The agent nursed the man for six months and stayed with him. The fugitive eventually died and the agent of the surety company took charge of the funeral, saw the man buried and returned home. Notice Super Crime Wave He said the surety corporations have noticed super crime wave throughout the country since thu close of the World War. He said few years ago bandits were men of 30 or 40 years old who would not shoot unless in self-de- fonse, nov they are mostly boys from IS to 2S and oftlmes kill their victim in cold blood for the pur- poses of robbery. He said surety companies divide crime into two general classifications, the violent crime like banditry and burglary and the quiet crime like embezzle- ment.
 Urges Frequent Audits "A large percentage of the latter can be prevented if business con- cerns will have more thorough and complete audits of their books, two or three times year." he said. He also said that it Is always the trust ed employe who gets away with em- bezzlement, the employe who is not trusted never gets chance. He cited an instance O. where a firm felt it was losing moneNahnd hired an accounting firm to check up on it's books. The investigators worked with trusted employe who read the figures off the book and they set them down, taking his figures. They found later this man was a thief and he had given them misleading figures not on the books at all.
 He said out of seven million per- sons under bond, there were only 10000 defalcations, one man in 100. Of these T0,000 he said probably only 1000 were responsible persons who deliberately stole and knew what they were doing. The other 5000 were men with families or girls supporting aged mothers who worked for $25 or $50 a week and just "borrowcd" from the till, under pressure, always intending to pay 1t back.
 He said the amount of money stolen, in the United States in a year is three times the size of the national budget and represents an annual taxation of s90 for every man. woman and child.
 He asked for the cooperation of all business firms and industries with the surety companies and advised l the use of police escorts for all persons who carry large sums of money on the streets, referring spe- officially to firms which still handle their payrolls in cash.
 The Rotarians were entertained by 8 number of songs by Mrs. D. J. T.andon vocalist of reputation in this city and Hartford. Theron Hart, i president of the New Britain Musi- cal club accompanied her.