SWINDLING IN AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 464, 25 March 1867, Page 3

SWINDLING IN AUCKLAND.

The New Zealand Herald of the 12th says:— The absconding of a merchant and a lawyer have caused very considerable excitement. It is believed both have taken considerable sums of money away with them. Both point the same moral—viz., the folly of excessive credit, and of excessive faith in the honesty of an individual who promised .ill but impossibilities—viz., 15 per cent, for money at call. Never was the dogma that a high rate of interest meant poor security better exemplified than in the case of, or rather in the cases of, the clients of Cox, the absconding lawyer. Cupidity and credulme Lucuio fliclxlcu the hypO = crisy of the moral scoundrel, who for a series of years has been robbing the unsuspecting widow and the fatherless, the stranger, the friend, and his own relatives, and who actually at the last half-yearly meeting of the Bank of Auckland, was sleeted one of its Auditors. The film, however, having been removed from the eyes of those who have money to lend, we may reasonably conclude that a healthier system will be the result. The fact that the rascal Cox had so touch

money from persons iu moderate circumstances shows that this class of people ha?© a considerable sum among them, which judiciously used, would be of vast benefit to the place. There is, however, this warning needed, viz., that we should not rush to the other extreme and refuse to put faith in any body because a few have proved rogues. The facts to which we have unhappily had to refer, teach us proper caution, but they do not impress upon us the necessity of believing nobody, and the desirability of hiding our treasure iu secret places, whore it will be doing good to no one.