PIOUS FRAUDS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5576, 6 January 1879, Page 7

PIOUS FRAUDS.

The Scotch papers (says the Pall Mall Gazette) are beginning to be very communientire respecting the personal career, character, and claims to notice of the six or seven gentlemen who, as directors and officers of the City of Glasgow Bank, seemed to hare contrived to divide among themselves and their friends, and otherwise to squander, very nearly seven millions of money; and it is edifying and instructive to find that these gentlemen were mostly distinguished lor the exemplary nature of their walk and conversation. One of the most distinguished of the group on account both of his bigh moral example and the extent to which ho helped Himself and his friends to the book’s cash, was Mr Lewis Potter, a native of Scotland, and himself and relatives long connected with the City of Glasgow Bank. . This gentleman, we are told, “ has lived sumptuously on a beautiful estate near Edinburgh, and has taken an active part in all movements affecting the moral and religious welfare of the district, and was warmly attached to the Free Church.” Indeed so warmly was he attached to that institution that five years ago he built the Bum bank Free Church, and became responsible for the greater portion of the cost of the fabric, and m consequence of this liberality has enjoyed «eat fame for pious real and benevolence. A slight drawback, however, has come to light by the failure—since it now appears that the cost of the Eurobank edifice did not come out of Mr Lewis Potter’s own pocket 5 and it is considered to be venr doubtful whether, in consequence of Mr Lewis Potter’s ingenious manipulation of the transaction, the shareholders of the Bank will be able to establish any lien over this ecclesiastical wet. So thyt Mr Lewis Potter furnishes one more to the very long roll of instances in which, as Swift says, “ There was a man who of his great bounty, built a church at the expense of the county." But upon the special test of sufficiency and rectitude to which the Scottish nation attaches the highest value — namely, the observance of the Sabbath —Mr Lewis Potter is described as giving forth a testimony most consistent and emphatic. During »ll these years when, according to the inspector’s report, he actively assisted in falsifying the accounts, in making away with the cash reserve, and in deceiving the shareholders and the public, he steadily refus.'d to take in or read Monday’s newspapers because they were printed on the first nay of the weak. Of Mr William Taylor, also, another director of the City of Glasgow Bank, it is remarked that he occupied a prominent Siaition as president of the Glasgow Young en’s Christian Association, and as a repre pro tentative on several occasions of 8t Enoch’s Church in the General Assembly. It is lamentable to have to add, that, notwithstanding the eminence of these two gentlemen in all the pious virtues, they went on steadily Tear after year falsifying the accounts and ruining the shareholders. ■ , . ■