How Dishonest Employees are Trapped.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7083, 23 January 1907, Page 1

How Dishonest Employees are Trapped.

I PROBLEMS EMPLOYERS HAVE TO FACE.

One of the most insidious tfangers with which an employer has to cope is pecula- , tion on the part, not of customers, but of . employees. There is hardly a firm of nots in this or any other country which has not, at some time or other, suffered severely thus—perhaps only to discover the thefts long after their commission, possibly only to suspect, but never io dis- ■ cover them at all. But it is when the thefts are committed within their knowledge and under their very^eyes, as it were, and continue with mystifying, unnerving frequency, in defiance of the most rigid precautions, thai, their full and terrible significance is felt. Quite recently there came under the writer's notice a strange case of this nature, which concerned a city merchant who conducted business on a modest scale. The nature of this business rendered it necessary that money in its readiest form should pass through the hands of employees, though shortages would periodically be ascertained by the aid of a tally or check system. At several such balances the cash failed, by a few pounds, to come up to the record of sales, and I after vainly trying to delude himself that these shortages lay at the door of care- , (ess sale-recording, and not with the cash, tho employer at last found himself compelled to face the intensely disagreeable fact that there was a thief among his staff, which, it should be explained, consisted entirely of young women. He turned each individual over in his mind and racked his brain for suspicious cir- . cumstances, but could not find it in his heart' to suspect anyone. The shortages continued with exasperating, disastrous consistency, and ho was obliged, for very self-preservation itself, to concoct a trap. Money was left promiscuously about, the coins uppermost being carefully marked and the date of each noted. The bait took, but in a manner entirely unlooked for and certainly different from what was intended. The marked coins were left severely alone, but several pieces of unmarked money were deftly abstracted. Evidently the ■ thief was marvellously cool and calculating. Next, a postal order whose number had previously been carefully noted was purposely crumpled up as if mistaken for a

(flip of no value, and left lying carelessly hi a place to which the employees had ifaily access, in the hope- that a dishonest finder would cash it and give his identity away in so doing, The postal order was never seen again till cashed; but, alas! the signature it bore was as strange as the name and gave absolutely no clue to the iltndur. The position grew intolerable— indeed, impossible. In a frenzy produced by his own apparent helplessness co ferret out the guilty party, the merchant dismissed every member of his staff. Only then did the thefts end; but the mystery of these thefts remains a mystery to the present day. In large establishments this continued pilfering compels employers to resort to the always objectionable expedient of calling in the aid of a detective—sometimes openly, more often than not in the guise of an employee. The extraordinary and disagreeable experience of a Glasgow firm is an eloquent case in point, and only a natural repugnance to public exposure and possible injury to business prevented the case seeing the light of day in the newspapers. This firm did what should have been an extremely lucrative retail trade, yet the mystifying and disagreeable fact lay revealed thc.t the income quite failed to meet the expenditure. Then one day check tills I were resorted to, and immediately the receipts rose quite 20 per cent., which would havo been very satisfactory only that gratification naturally was dulled by i the feeling that there was at least one dishonest person in the establishment; but in a weak moment the partners agreed to 'let well b».' Now, not one peculator, perhaps, in a hundred will anticipate discovery by turning honest; and, balked of his money plunder, the thief turned his attention to thro stock. Small but valuable articles began to be missed in an inexplicable manner, and the stock-sheets soon ,'told as dire a tale as the cash accounts formerly had done. For a long time it was impossible with any certainty to attach guilt to anyone in particular; but something had to be done, so an employee, about whose integrity least was known, was dismissed, and for some days there was a lull in the- plundering. Ifc broke out again, howevor, more rampant than ever, till it bocarno quite a serious matter for the firm. j Then one of the partners in this extremity hit upon a stratagem, bold to a ; fault, but also very clever. An anonymous letter was sent to each employee, warning him that his guilt had been discovered. Every one of them, with a single exception, not only admitted receiving this communication, but indignantly produced it for general perusal and indeed subsequently interviewed their principals. The exception kept, as it ! transpired, an indiscreet reserve, first de- ! nying, then admitting the- receipt of tho letter. A day later he disappeared, and with his disappearance the peculations came permanently to an end. I Unfortunately, it very often happens that when money or goods are missed suspicion is prone to attach to an individual

merely by reason of prejudice on the part of the employer, who is apt to exaggerate some 'trifling incident into evidence of guilt, and nothing could be more to the mind of the real thief, should he happen to be other than the~person suspected.

An illustration of this was given recently in a 'case which, all but had its sequel in the civil courts. Money commenced to disappear from a certain establishment in sums which, trivial at first,, steadily grew larger, but with such subtlety .that for long the sufferer was a prey to conflicting doubts rather than to any clearly-defined suspicion.

Coins were abstracted from the principal's room and from the purses and pockets of fellow-employees with equal readiness, till at last it was felt that something would have to be done.

Investigation led to nothing material, except one suspicious fact. Every employee but on» «v able to prove an alib: on at least one or more of the occasions of the alleged pilferings, and this man, on being frankly confronted -with this somewhat significant coincidence, changed colour and otherwise behaved in a way popularly supposed to be peculiar to gnilfcy persons. He was eashiored on the spot; but before many days had passed

J two very disquieting things happened. >The firm was served with an action for I defamation at the instance of the disI" missed man, and, what was still worse, the peculations were resumed.. A sore quandary, indeed; but the problem was stoutly tackled. The situation of the ex-employee, till then unfilled, was tern, porarily given to a private detective, and in less than a fortnight the fact was laid bare that not one but several employees I had conspired to rob the firm. Too often the robbed employer is not the best person to weigh up the integrity of his staff. Not so long ago a trusted foreman stood in the dock ready to confess to a protracted series of thefts which had been brought home to him by mere accident. Marked money, it seems, had been left in a certain room, primarily with the intention o.f trapping a suspected servant, who was to have been sent .there on some pretext, but, quite unexpectedly, the prisoner had repaired there first, and it was in his, and not the other's, possession that th© tell-tale coins were found.