UNKNOWN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5364, 25 January 1879, Page 7

UNKNOWN.

Ttir trin\ of T'Kint, at Krussel*, says the Times' correspondent, f-r the pmh zz'ement of securities to thd va ue of '20 000 OOOf. deposited with the of B*-I iam—a - I held to be one of the most ex ra«*rdmary on [ record—is now drawing to a close. ' h*» j hi6to»y of T'Kint, as told in the net of iivlictine t, is as follows :— He entered the hank as afmpcrnumerary in 1855 and, displaying con siderablc hu«inc<>s capacity, was retailed permanently as chief de bureau, with a*aUry of 4QOOf. a year, at which figure his emolu ra -nts to have rema ned till the list Being of g .od f »mily and the possessor of s-me private meuis, he enjoyed a certain position in thehank from the Hut Ins manners and hkill a« on gaiaed for hiui th.j special good graces of the governor, M. Fortamps. over whom ho gradually ohtainrd the aHC'jii iency which en ibled hira to commit his frauds. T'Kmt b-cime his privat- fn. ntl, his adviser, :«nd ultimately almost i«is factotum. The e.»nfid nee the governor reposed in him was also in 1-irge measure ex tended to him hy Ids other superiors, and he made himself p titular wrh everybody. It w ;\9, however, the governor's tuisfc in him which forms tin? central point in the ease. From making f'lCuit his orgi»i an I sending all orders through him, h* left a great deai t« be managed «>n T'Kint's own initiative, till the subordinates eventually became to regard T'Kintand M. Fort imps as one. This confidence m T'Kint w«»ul I not, h »wever, have »iven him all the p nver i% did hut for the statut-s of 'his par-icntar invoking itgovernor with an independence of the Bo .rd not generally' sicconh d to bank governor-. T'Kint was thereby enabled to do whatever ho liked without control, and afterwards to e*cap»* d-tection which would otherwise ha\e pro bably nut been ho long delayed. He had run access to the safe-room ; but Ins orders having conic to he roga ded as synonymous with 'those of the governor, h»s n ver had my dillioulty in obtaining anv portfolio he wanted for I'is purposes. Extraordinary laxity, how«'vor, seems to have icigmd throughout th" business of the not only as regnds 'he governor, lut in every hrtnch The bo »ks when revised showed careless entries and miI filled-np details referring ti deposited ; Micuri-.ie-», and even the keeper of the saf; restored tho portfolios to th-i places without regular examination. All w.-nfc on smoothly on this lootmg till M. Bi.seh fl'-dieim. a senator, looking over one of the half-monthly accounts of the Uai- se *le Im ports, saw a 1 irgc transaction in certain s a cur ties of which he was a considerable holder, and wh-»<e holding was dep-sit-d with the Bank of Belgium The largeness of the sum rous d his suspicions ; he made enqubies. and found the titles concerned were r. aliy his own. He at once informed M. Fortamps, who was at the time in England, of this occurrence, and that gentleman fmthwith returned to Brn sels T'Kint, howev* r, hal an explanation r»'ady. He said lie had merely made same confusion of M. Bi>chotl:dieiiu's securities with his own, and titles to the same amount, though bea» other numbers, having boon found to have been safely encased in the portfolo, the possibility of an error was accepted and nothing further was said to T'Kiir.. Still, to prevent any recurrence of the kind, a new system of keeping the deposit accounts was devised, and the portfolio was cur>orily inspoctcd by the governor. M. Fortamps does not seem to have known the extent to which I'kint made use of the powers lie derived from him, nor do the other ollieials seem to have suspected T'Kiut of using h»s own discretion to the extent he did. He only required after a short tim-.; to say that M. Fortamps no longer thought the additional entries in the deposit accounts worth while to get the extra work dropped. In the meantime, T'Kint continued to exercise the functions the governor had virtually delegated to him. He had for three yeais given the orders for the client* of the bank to the brokers as a regular duty. Soon, however, complaints were made as to receiving back titles bearing different numbers from those deposited. This time a thorough examination of the portfolios was ordered, and now the disc >very was made that many were half empty. Meanwhile T'Kint had absconded to P-ris, whence he wrote to tho governor in a sentimental strain, hoping to be able to make arrangements for restoring the abstracted securities and not attempting to conceal hi 3 guilt. M. Fortamps, still believing in him, prevented measures for his arrest b-*ing at once taken, so as to give him a chance of restoring the stolen property ; but on its b ing discovered that his mistress and hsr maid had left Bruss U with some dozen trunks tho police were informed, and the women were followed to Liverpool, whence T'Kint again wrote to M. Fortcamps, saying j that he had not succeeded in obtaining the ! means of paying back what he had abstracted, and that he was going to America to work and retrieve his position and restore what he had embezzled. The detectives -ecured him at Queenstown before he embirlcd and lie was brought to Brussels. The&e events passed in the spring of 1S71», and the investigations have been proceeding ever sine?. The governor is also being tried for a false statement of accounts made to cover an illegal attempt to push the shares of the bank by buying them in on the bank's account. The case, however, is uot one likely to be of frequent occurrence, T'Kint having been able to commit bis frauds owing to an unusual laxity of management prevading the whole busiuess of the bauk and to the extraordinary intimacy between him and tin governor, cn whose easiness the Public Prosecutor passed very severe strictures. The defence set up is that T'Kint used the deposited bonds out of devotion to the interest of tho bank —a plea which the Public Prosecutor has easily shown to be absurd. A curious incident in the course of the case was a statement of the counsel for the defence that a sum of 40,000f. had been voted by the bank to assist him in his defence. To this is attributed the tendency of T'Kint's revelations to throw the wholo blame on himself. Duriug tho period of live years over which his frauds arc believed to have extended, his operations with one broker alone amounted to 4G2,123,000f. in sales, and -101,325, OOOf. in purchases, with a loss of 8315 OOOf. At one settlement—that of the 15th May, IS7s—he lost as much as 1,010,000f.