THE SYDNKY MUNICIPAL FRAUDS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 85, 12 April 1888, Page 2

THE SYDNEY MUNICIPAL FRAUDS.

Stduey, April 8. Further developments in connection with the^ Town Hall frauds are expected shortly, information having been received showing that the past twenty or thirty-five years has been a period of wholesale systematic plundering. The public know that tha statements of defalcations amounting to over £20,000 have been amply verified on documentary and personal testimony, and may now rest, assured that thers will \ji full proof nt the rifht time of ibe announcement thst there are evidences of wholesale sys'.etnatio robbaries in various department?, and bbc Mayor finds now that the swindling has beea carried on under a triplicate eyetem, each . bring one outrageous dodge f.;r pnrloining public money. ' For instance, in some thousands of cateß the weights of articles have been al'ertd in many oas;s to 30 per cent over their real weight. Another system is the alterations ef prices of entraefc*. It appaars that fer some yinr*, and with partioular ao-.ivity in the Bradford era, prices have been put in by contractors 4< haphazard liko," go it is found that articles tendered for at 2d or at 2s have been supplied and paid for at 7d, 3«, 12«, and so on ; in pomt of fact, so "astounding are these new revelations that the whole thing seems to have been an alarmingly gigantio system of robbery for which the public must now have the fullest satisfaction. The revelations will show that the oitizens of Sydney have for a period »f years been robbed by deliberate wide-planned frauds of not less than £100,900. The Mayor is consulting counsel as to the steps to be taken for prosecutions for fraud and conspiring to defraud, some of which are to be carried into circles sometimes oalled influential.