MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 218, 6 November 1888, Page 2

MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

fFEOM oub own correspondent ] The sensation of the week has been furnished by the discovery of an extensive series of frauds in the Title’s Office, by which the public funds have suffered to the extent of some £20,000 to £30,000. No very precise particulars are known yet, but what has come to light has culminated in the arrest, on warrant, of Mr F. J. Butler, the working head of the registry department since the departure for England of Mr Gibbs, the registrar of titles, who had to get leave of absence on account of sickness. An extensive series of frauds in connection with the issuing of license stamps has come to light, which frauds, it is now known, have been carrried on for years past. It is at present impossible to say how much the defalcations amount to, but it is thought £30,000 will not cover it. Others are said to be concerned besides Mr Butler, and it is probable that before Iqpg further arrests will be made of officials occupying a prominent place in the Title's Offices

The frauds are of two kinds. Insurance Companies have to pay an annual license fee of 30s. on every £lOO of gross premium they receive, and on applying for a new license each ye *f, must tender this charge on the past twelve months’ transactions. It then goes as stamp »go on the newly issued license. A very simple mode of fraud was thus opened for Mr Butler. He simply did not issue the licenses paid for, but advertised them in the Government Gazette. Most of the Insurance Companies were satisfied with this, and Butler must thus have fraudulently appropriated thousands. Some idea may be gained of the magnitude of sums involved, when it is mentioned that some companies in town pay as much as £750 a year license fee. Butler’s second method seems to have been to take the stamps (value up to £lOO each) from old licenses, and paste them on to new ones of a corresponding date. Thus a cancelie 1 Stamp of date, say, 3/10/86 could be easily altered to 3/10/88, and thus at ouce, by this startlingly simple method, was a fraud of a large amount committed. The shocking laxity and idiocy of such a system cannot be too strongly reprehended, and the public now will not be satisfied until the whole matter of the public service is thoroughly inves {gated and overhauled. A general outcry is bding raised against the laxity of rule that obtains in the various Departments —they are a veritable Augean stable, and want a thorough sweeping.