FRAUD AT THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 402, 9 June 1849, Page 3

FRAUD AT THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

The circumstances attending this recent fraud are very remarkable, and the whole facts of the case appear not to be fully unders'ood. It is almost of importance, inasmuch as the decision of the court of directors appears to admit a new principle in the management of great public establishments. An error in judgment is made, and for that error in judgment five persons have to pay the £1000 between them, previous good conduct for a series of years not being in any way considered, and the unvarying responsibility attendant on their duties not in the most remote degree allowed to extenuate a mistake that ordinary and usual care could not have prevented. The following are the facts :—: — About two years ago a clerk, in the Bank of England was passing from Jones, Lloyd, and Go's, through the Lothbury-gate, to his own office, when he missed his pocket-book, containing about £1700. Thinking he might have left it at the counter of Jones, Lloyd, and Go's, he immediately returned, but to his dismay could obtain no information concerning it. The distance was but a few yards — a porter is constantly at the gate through winch he passed — and therefore he had unfortunately not taken the customary precaution of placing the chain attached to his poc-ket-book atound his neck. The above circumstances almost preclude the idea that he was robbed of it in the street ; and the probability is. that he left it on the counter of Jones, Lloyd, and Co., and that some person engaged in banking business availed himself of his neglect. A few days since, a note for £1000, being part of the contents of his poc-ket-book, was presented for payment. The inspector examined it, and handed it as genuine to the cashier, who, finding t!'e number on the note presented was not among his list of stopped thousands, passed it to the payclerk, who gave, as requested, two five hundred pound notes, and shortly afterwards gold was received for these two notes. Subsequently suspicion was excited, and it was found that the leading figure of the number (a 9) had been changed to a cypher. Notwithstanding these circumstances, the clerks have been changed and ordered to pay the money in the following portions :—: — 1. The cashier who marked the note for payment is ordered to pay £300 because four figures out of five agreed with the number of the stopped note. As the notes, however, are numbered to 100,000 it follows that in every series there are several notes in which four figures agree ; and the cashier, aware of this, never looks but at the leading figure, and this figure was not in the note he passed. 2. The inspector has to pay £150, because he banded the note to the cashier as a genuine note. This really was the fact ; the figure substituted for the other being one cut from another bank-note, and so well inserted that it was not apparent to the eye, two days elapsing beiore the bank knew how it was done. 3. The clerk who gave the gold for the two £500 dotes has to pay £100, because he believed the person who came to be a banker's clerk ; and it is highly probable that this was the case, from the manner in which the notes were lost, and from the complete knowledge of bank business evinced throughout by the defrauders. 4. The clerk who received "James-street' as a sufficient description, has to pay £100,

because lie >li i not receive a further description ; in this, however, he did not depart from the usual practice of the office. 5. The clerk who originally lost the note has to pay £350. The fault he committed, and it is the only one through the whole transaction, was the neglecting to wear the chain attached to his pocket-hook ; but then this is rarely done in such a short distance.