A REPENTANT EMBEZZLER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 81, 27 April 1877, Page 3

A REPENTANT EMBEZZLER.

The " Vagabond " tells an interesting story about one of the prisoners under a long sentence, who is now employed there as the surgery and hall porter. He was a clerk in the Lands office at a salary of £300 a year and he lived at the rate of thousands. There appears absolutely to have been no check upon him, and he took what he wanted. The lowest computation of his defalcations is £20,000. He loved horses and dogs, and freely indulged his tastes. • In his own words, " I never smoked, and always drank very little. I had to keep my head "cool. A hundred times I seemed on the point of being found out,

and nothing but coolness saved me. It was a trying life, though, and day and night I was never free from anxiety." " Was the game worth the candle ?" I asked. "It was not," replied he ." and I was glad when it was over at last." In spite of this coolness conscience made a coward of him, and he fled. Had he remained at his post and brazened it out, it would have been impossible to convict him. In his haste he left un destroyed the counterfeit of a receipt book, which was the damning evidence against him. For many months led a wandering life. He roamed through New Zealand, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Hebrides, enduring at times many hardships in flying from real or fancied per suit. At last he took the mail steamer to Singapore. But Detective o'Callahan was on his track, and the cable, that bete noir of the modern criminal, flashed to the Straits the authority for his arrest. Mr. O'Callahan, a fellow-countryman, followed by the next steamer, and brought to Melbourne. Trial and sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment followed. At Pentridge has been noted for good conduct. This and his failing health have caused his appointment to his billet. He works hard, and does his duty thoroughly saying little to anyone, but communing with his own thoughts. I was sorry for. His is one of those weak, not criminal natures which cannot resist a great temptation. A man who would not have defrauded a creditor or a comrade, he robbed fhe public treasury on a large scale. And the game was not worth the candle, for now he lies in Pentridge his family dishonored, and himself dying by inches. Should he live however, will be a rich man, for he declares that in his wanderings he came across treasures incalculable. He will not say what it is or where ; but on some island in the South Seas there is an El Dorado which none but this fugitive from justice has discovered. Criminal though he has been, worthily as he deserved his sentence, I . cannot but pity ,his remorse is so evidently sincere and his punishment so great.