The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, August 4, 1891. THE BUILDING SOCIETY FRAUDS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume V, Issue 642, 4 August 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, August 4, 1891. THE BUILDING SOCIETY FRAUDS.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

By its constitution a Building Society usually becomes one of the important institutions in any community in which it is established. It is a monetary concern mainly supported by the thrifty and industrious portion of a community, those who for the greater number make no pretension of skill in finance, or of possessing any of those qualifications necessary for the good government of a monetary institution. The body of shareholders as a rule are content to leave matters to the few who are acknowledged to possess the qualifications required, and if they happen to own contributing shares they pay in their dues as the regulations prescribe, and trouble their heads no further so long as the dividend at the end of the year is considered satisfactory. The Gisborne Society had long been looked on as a flourishing and very useful institution, in which those who invested had the most implicit faith. If any shareholder had been told that all these years he or she had been the victim of impudently perpetrated frauds, the idea would have been scouted. Because of the absence of the slightest suspicion during this time the shock now comes with quadruple force. The embezzler had been successful in breaking through all the ordinary safeguards, and it was only when unexpected circumstances of a saddening nature had made further concealment an almost impossible thing that he took to his heels. In a few weeks the whole transactions must have had light thrown on them, and the man appears to have judged well that the time had come when he must either become a fugitive from justice, or be punished as the Court might direct. The grossness of the crime is aggravated by the circumstances by which it was characterised. The very night he was giving to the world a certain poem in memoriam, he was thieving the hardearned savings of many a member of the community ; he continued his auditing of Church accounts, and while engaged in ascertaining the deficiencies of a defaulting official he repeatedly adopted the “ I-told-you-so " Style, Saying, 11 There, row ! If you had appointed me when I applied for the position you would not have had this sort of thing to deal with." The letter which he got some one to post in Gisborne last Friday, addressed to Mr Townley, and containing some valueless Oil Company and other scrip, by which he has added the final act of jeering at those whom he robbed, is about the most brazen-faced thing that could possibly be conceived. There should be no difficulty in detecting, by the handwriting, the person who has been a party in this affair, and who evidently kept the letter back for a week, it being dated from Auckland a fortnight before received, and bearing Other evidence that it was in the first , place despatched from Auckland by i

the absconder himself. Of course the other party to this business might have acted innocently, but in that case an admission and explanation should be at once forthcoming ; otherwise an exposure should be made, for great blame will rest on anyone attempting to shield what on the face of it appears to have been an accessory after the fact. The question that naturally arises in regard to the frauds is how it was possible that they could be so systematically perpetrated. It is easy to be wise after the event, and to lay blame on those whose scrutiny the rogue has been clever enough to evade, but an explanation at the proper time may put the affair in a better light. As to the stability of the Society, notwithstanding the shock it has had to face, there is no need to feel apprehension. Many thrifty people who can ill afford to be victimised by even the loss of interest on their money, will feel the hardship keenly, hut it is satisfactory to know that the Society’s soundness has not been materially affected. The exposure will ensure the most careful scrutiny in the future, and ought to make any recurrence of the kind a matter of impossibility. Even though it has been bled so by the systematic thefts of the Secretary it has always paid substantial dividends, and when the dirty fog that now surrounds the late Secretary’s connection with it is cleared away, the Society should continue more progressive than ever. The community itself has sustained a blow that must leave an ugly scar for a long time to come. In a small place we are apt to magnify passing events that would not receive anything like the attention in larger centres, but the unfortunate part of it is that the circumstances surrounding certain experiences within the past twelve months have attracted colonial attention and the district itself is made to suffer a large amount ignominy, while such a spirit of distrust has naturally been engendered as to have that bad effect which must follow when faith or commendable shrewdness gives place to general suspicion, There is no blinking at this fact, nor is there any use trying to hide it.