EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF BANK NOTES.
Tin-: detective policu are at present busily i engaged in investigating a most mysterious loss of bank notes, by which the English, Scottish and Australian Chartered Bank lias suffered to the extent of £1225. A parcel of notes—presumably on the Commercial Bank—has disappeared, cither in the head office of the \i., S. and A.C. Bank, in the clearing house, or in transit between these two points, and not the slightest evidence can be obtained as to how the loss occurred. The name of the bank on which the notes were drawn, and the actual date of the disappearance, are matters almost as problemantie as the question whether the notes were wilfully abstracted or accidently lost. The only certainty about t'ne whole transaction is that notes to the amount of £1225 are entered upon the books as having passed the bank, and cannot now be accounted for. The discovery of the loss was made in the clearing house on Monday, March 2">ch, by Mr H. T. G'ordncr, the outward exchange clerk of the E., S. and A.C. Bank. According to his clearing slip, he had to hand to the Commercial Bank notes to the value of £8525. The inward clerk of the Commercial Bank, however, discovered that the parcel presented to him was short by £1225. The notes were carefully recounted without result, and, as an examination of the clearing clip, showed an entry against tho Commercial Bauk of £1225, the natural presumption was that the parcel had been overpaid to some other bank. Acting on this view of tho case, the matter was at onco reported to the inspector of the clearing house, Mr Cheeter Earles, who gave instructions that none of tho clerks should leave the clearing house until they had balanced their exchanges. An extra halfhour was occupied in this operation, but at 12.30 it was announced that all the balatices had been completed aud that no trace of the missing notes could be found. The enquiries made by the officials of the E., S. and A. C. Bank have been equally barren of result. All that can be ascertained is that the parcel was handed by the teller to the outward exchange clerk sometime between noon on Friday and Monday morning, that it was locked by him in his bag, and that the bag remained in the strong room of the bank during the interval. Cordner himself can offer no explanation of the loss, except that some ; mistake has occurred in the teller's branch, and that he never really received the notes. It is clear, however, that the responsibility of the loss rests with him, and though no suspicions are entertained of his honesty it has been judged advisable for the present to transfer him to another department. His guarantors will of course be called on to make good the deficiency. It is not by any mean 3 the first time that bank notes have disappeared in the clearing house under precisely similar conditions. More than onco a £5 or a £10 note has been recorded as unaccountably missing, and the clerk in charge has had to make up the amount. Until Monday, however, the losses have been confined to small sums, and a case like that of the E.,S. and A.G. Bank is entirely without precedent. The fact is that the system of clearing adopted by the associated banks is marred by more than one grave flaw. A mere clerical error in the preparation of the clearing slip may place a dishonest clerk in a position to heavily tax the funds of the bank without the slightest fear of detection. For instance, supposing the day's clearing to include two parcels of notes— £7000 on bank A, and £7500 on bank B— an accidental transposition of the amounts on the clearing slip might furnish an identical case to that of Monday. The total at the foot of the slip would agree with the teller's books, although A would actually be over charged £500 and B undercharged a similar amount. In the clearing house the exchange clerks, sorting all the notes of each bank together, would hand B notes to the value of £7500, with a pay in slip for £7000 only, and the receiving clerk, should he bo disposed to seize the opportunity, has only to initial the slip as correct, and to pocket the surplus. The deficiency would be discovered as soon a3 the exchange clerk came rouud to A; but there would be no means of tracing the loss. And this is in effect the chief weakness of the system. It exposes the defalcations, but it offers absolutely no means of identifying the defaulter.
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Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2617, 20 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)
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784EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF BANK NOTES. Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2617, 20 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)
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