DEPARTMANTAL FRAUBS. Extraordinary Revelations.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 321, 1 December 1888, Page 6

DEPARTMANTAL FRAUBS. Extraordinary Revelations.

The irregularities discovered in the Registrar -Ueneial's office, Victoria, have proved to be of & much more extensive character than was anticipated would be the case when the board ot investigation was appointed by the Government. The revenue and resources of the department appear to have been utilised by one at least; of the officers in such an open and audacious manner for his own personal benefit that the members of the board could not at first realise the fact that between £30,000 and £40,000 could possibly have been appropriated in the face of the safeguards alleged to have been provided by tno audits ot the commissioners against peculation in the service. The books and papers of the department were found during the course of the inquiry to have been kept in u perfunctory and irregular manner, and in very many cases important State documents which ought to be in existence, beai-ing several hunched pounds' worth of stamps, have disappeared altogether. Not only was the business of completing the registrations pei formed in an irregular manner, but it was found in some cases that the licenses for insurance companies, for which the usual fees were paid, had never been issued; thatimportant legal documents were rendered valueless by not being properly stamped ; and that stamps which should have been cancelled had been removed from one document and attached to a second, and sometimes a third. A number of other dicoveries were made by the board, which estimated the number of distinct instances of fiand, embezzlement, and forgery at about thirty. The inquiry so far has shown a most extraordinary state of things in connection with the audit, and still more seriously as regards the administration of the particular depai'trnent involved.