RETRIBUTION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 147, 16 March 1908, Page 7

RETRIBUTION.

V . WILL WALSH ESCAPE? A SENTENCE AND AN APPEAL. BANKER LENDS HIMSELF THE BANK'S FUNDS. OT tGLEGIIArn— ri!ES3 iSSOOIiTION—COPYEXGHI(Rec. March 15, 5.28 p.m.) ■. . ' New VOfU, March 14. John R. Walsh, of ChicagOj president of the defunct Chicago National Bank, convicted of fraudulently lending about £3,000,000 of tlio bank's funds, has been refused a new trial. Ho was sentenced to iiyo years' detention 'in a penitentiary.

Walsh has appealed against tho conviction, and has been released on bail, amounting to £10,000.; ' .• Tho Jijflgo remarked that a banker ought to be nothing but aT banker.; Nobody conlcl •servo two masters. 'Prisoner had practically lent to himself, for tho purposes*of speculation, three-fourths of tho bank's assets. , b WALSH'S SYSTEM* In view of the release of Schinitz and Euef, and the possible, evehtual escivpe of tho men on whoso puniglimont San' Francisco sought to found a new aiul more honest existence, it is dangerous to jjfotihcd.y as td'tho result of ap•peals in American criiiiiilal law. .Walsh himself appcai-s to be optimistic. . "The fight has only j list begun," he is i'ejlbvted to have said when tko'.jury l'eturtied its verdict. Walsh is a ,mtln of Seventy'years.. According to the San Frandisco corfbspondent of. tlio "Ago," lie, lilco J,ibcz Balfour, appealed trt people ,of scant inducing - theitt by glowing promisee to trust their small savings to .him. \Walsh foilnded. several wild-eat institutions allied with llis. banjc to.. hnndje these savings. Among them , were the Home Saving Bank and tho Equitable* Trust 'Company. To many of the iiotes the names of officials of''the banks'frere forged. ■ The hoOke of the Chicago , National Bank were so cleverly, cooked that for several 'years the National Bank examiners V/ere kept in ignorance of tho trlie condition of . the bank's affairs.. .. ' •

The details of his crimes short'. Walsh to have handled the bank's deposits with reckless indifference to consequences. Watered (stock to tho probable extent of ib,000,000 br ,£6,000,000 was issued. Through his employees Walsh voted, the stock to himself. Ho then sqld this .watered stock to- : the banks, taking the money to build up private enterprises. All the stock so issued by Walsh to himself and for which he took millions from the .bank's vaults fras practically valueless. It was . also the practice of Walsh to make loans to one of his struggling wild-cilt' industrial enterprises, and then sell the bonds of, that company tho bank at exorbitant prices. ...These bonds -lyero worth little or nothing. Another barefaced trick by which he. stole the money of deKositors was to make out cheques payable to carer, and credit them to' his own personal account. • . ' 1