Frenzied Financier

NZ Truth, Issue 976, 9 August 1924, Page 6

Frenzied Financier

DIPS AND DIPS AGAIN.

Midnight Confession to Police.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is "a poor solution of a difficulty, as a young man named Geoffrey Gould Woolley was brought to realise when he commenced to tamper with the books of Walker and Hall, silversmiths, of Wellington, by whom he had been employed as a clerk and salesman since February, 1923. l It was Geoffrey's job to keep the cash book and customers' ledger and handle all .moneys incoming to the firm and everything went well until Geoff, forgot to return to work from a holiday on July 9. Unfortunately for him, an audit was. m progress at the time, and the principals! imust , have felt a trifle faint when they were advised that' defalcations amounting to £GB2 17s Id had been discovered. It turned out that their trusted servant, without worrying over the mere formality of consulting the heads, had introduced into the accounts, a system known as the "carry-over" system. His practice was to pay back one amount with another, and^o the game went on. But Geoffrey must have had qualms of . conscience, for when the ghostly hour of midnight was booming out on a recent Sunday, he walked into the police station to unburden f hls soul. He made a clean breast of the whole business, helped Detective Walsh to prepare a schedule of the 1 defalcations, and made no 'demur when paraded, bofore Magistrate Rkldell on Wednesday. The only matter that was not cleared up was the whereabouts of the cash. It- was a penitent and confessedly guilty clerk who was sent on to -the Supremo Court for his mqdiclne.