Denton Examiner, Audenshaw, Hooley Hill and Dukinfield Advertiser. — 1876-11-18 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

THE STROUSBERG TRIAL. • The Strousberg anti ComMeroial Loan Bank trial at Moscow has terminated with the condemnation of the three German prisoners and the acquittal of seventeen Russian prisoners. The three Germans are Dr. Strousberg, of Berlin; Herr Landau of Breslau, late managing director of the Moscow Commercial Loan Bank; and Herr Schuhinacher, late member of the Council of the Moscow Commercial Loan Bank and Chief Burgomaster of Moscow. Only one Russian prisoner, M. Polyanski, likewise a managing director of the Bank, was found guilty, and this with extenuating circumstances. The original charge against Strousberg was that he had borrowed money on insufficient security; and odd' as it nosy seem he was arrested on this somewhat ettraordinary charge. But subaequently the Public Bramentor obtained new evidence, chiefly from the confessions of the directors; and in the trial the principal charge which he had to answer was that, he bribed Landau and F'olyansky, the two leading spirits of the Moscow Commercial Bank, and that he thus fraudulently got large advances on no security, and contrary to the regulations of the bank. Landau and I Pelyansky, the other mast important prisonars, were accused of having been bribed by Strousberg, and of having published false balance-sheets. Some al the other eighteen prisoners were merely charted with I culpable carelessness, with having allowed the presi- I dent, the vice-preeident, and members of the Directorate to do as they pleased; others were amused of I having been parties to the teeny of fraudulent balancesheets in 1873, 1874, and 1875. When we state that I among the accused were the Burgomaster of Moscow, and several well-known bankers, it will be felt that the case reveals a state of things most deplorable. After the witnesses had been heard, the Public Prosecutor delivered a lengthy address to the jury. ILI began by denouncing Dr. Strousberg as a Berlin Jew bent upon cheating the honest Russians. Or. Strollsberg and the other accused were good examples of modern society, with its greed for money at any risk and at say price. Dr. Strousberg corrupted Landau , and Polyanaki, the managing directors of the bank, to I advance him an immense sum on purely fictitious securities. The shares deposited by Dr. Strousbere were unsaleable at the time, and, therefore, could not . be regarded as a sufficient security. They could be worth money only if Dr. Strousberg obtained further advances to complete the Bohemian ironworks, which those shares represented; he did not obtain air the money he required, and the ',shares, accordingly, were waste paper. Herr Landau, who knew Strousberg's former position, perhaps, might have retarded him as a rich man and a safe debtor when he began making. advances; but Polyanski, the other managing directer, , had no such excuse, and approved the transactionsaMely I because he was bribed. It was contended that the bribes were given, not before, but after the transactions, and,' I therefore, could notbe legally regarded as bribes. Th.ts plea was irrelevant in a business involving many andcessive transactions, and rendering every separate bribe an incentive to future crime, even though handed over for past derelictions. Worse, however, than Strousberg, Landau, and Polyanski were the members of the council of the bank. The cowardly associates of daring criminals, they were distinguished by nothing but meanness and fraud. To conceal the sorry condition of the concern they published forged balance-sheets the two years preceding their connection with Strousberg. They next allowed the directors to engage in the most venturesome transactions, and, on discovering the melancholy result, took no steps to close the bank until they had sold their shame and withdrawn their deposits. They were the thieves who plundered the victim after the murder had been committed by bolder criminals. The speech of the Public Prosecutor was twice interrupted by demonstrative toughing in the strangers' galleries, which caused the presiding judge to corn mood silence.