A CONTINENTAL SWINDLE.

Evening Star, Issue 3119, 17 February 1873, Page 3

A CONTINENTAL SWINDLE.

A most scandalous affair, which has created an immense sensation throughout Germany and Europe, occurred a few days ago in Munich. The breakdown of the great Spitzeder bank, in Munich, is the talk of the day. Miss A dele Spitzeder, the daughter of an actor, already past the best years of life, and formerly an actress herself, took it into her head, about three years ago, to take up money at a high rate of interest. She got plenty of money, paid must punctually her 10 percent. interest monthly for it, and lent it out again at 12 pet cent, monthly to needy noblemen and officers. At a time when you couldn’t get per cent per annum for your money in Munich, Miss Spitzeder offered you 10 per cent, monthly. No wonder, then, amongst the stupid and ignorant she found plenty of customers. Miss Spitzeder was, besides, famed for her great piety. She wore round her mck a large golden cross, went twice a day to mass, and was on terms of the greatest intimacy with the Ultramontane Bavarian clergy, who exhorted their parishioners in town and country to deposit their savings with Miss Adele Spitzeder, who would pay them 120ti. per annum for every lOOfl. deposited at her bank. She was enabled to carry on for several years this sort of business only by lending out the money she received at a still higher rate, and by speculating on a grand scale in house property, and on ’change. In one instance, it is stated that for 7, OOdfl. she advanced, she received a promissory note foi 10,000fl. But her business could never have flourished as it did, and she could never have got as customers the small cum try people, if she hadn’t entered into a close alliance with Ultramontanism, by whose aid she managed to get thousands of ignorant countiy people to deposit their savings with her, attracted as they were besides by the splendid gain. It became, at last, quite a mania with the working classes of Munich to invest their money at Spitzedcr’s. People declared they wouldn’t work any longer, as they were enabled to live on the interest of the money invested at Miss Adele’s. The unavoidable breakdown, with all its fearful consequences, came at last. She had, during the last few weeks, several times not been able to pay the biil presented to her, and the other day a deputation from the Munich Court of Justice suddenly appeared at her banking office, and demanded to see the books.. But no books at all had been kept in this immense business ; all that was to be found were loose bits of paper, on which notes bad been made. The judicial researches and inquiries, however, resulted in the fact that the whole of the assets amount to 700,000 florins, whilst the liabilities reach the fearful sum of 15 millions. This result having been arrived at, notice was immediately sent to private psanriou to arrest her. She was’ ip her bopdoir, the golden cross round her neck, reading in a breviary, and smoking a cigarette. The excitement and fury of the populace in Munich was such, that the military had to be confined to the barracks, as at one time a revolution was feared. Soldiers occupied the street in which the banking establishment is situated, and all precautions were taken against a popular outbreak, which happily did not take place. The scandal is immense, persons of the highest rank, m ell-known Catholic‘clergymen, even a bishop, are seriously ’ compromised; the editois of the principal UlthitOontane newspapers of Munich have fled, together with othar compromised peisbnages, to escape punishment. The misery will be fearful, as ' the bulk of*the money belprigeff to thousands, of smaill ppqplp in' tile pountry. This affair will happijy prpyp a jpost sprious blow to Ultramputanigm in Bavayia, and so be in the end a blessing to the nation. It also throws a glaring light Qn the state of popular education apef social affufrs altogether iq '"avar a, under the guidance of tpe Ultramontane clergy. The trial won’t take place for some time yet, the Bavarian Government being occupied at present with the task of finding the accomplices, and collecting materials for what promises to become a very sensational trial.