LOST STAMPS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20316, 26 January 1928, Page 7

LOST STAMPS.

CLAIM FOR £44.000. ALLEGATION OF THEFT. Lone; and costly litigation cam e to «> end recently when the House of Lords decided tho'case arising out of the alleged theft of a valuable collection of postage stamps belonging to Mr Jona s Lek, a diamond merchant, of Brusssels. The House by a majority of two to decided against Mr Lek, and allowed with costs the appeal of Mr Henry Noble Mathews, as representative of a number of Lloyd s underwriters. The action was brought by Mr Lek to recover £44,000 under a policy of insurance in respect of the stamp collection which was alleged to have been stolen from his bedroom at an hotel in Berlin. Mr Justice Branson held that Mr Lek had suffered loss, but finding the claim to be false and fraudulent, he gave judgment for the representative underwriter. The Court of Appeal by a majority reversed the judgment, and ordered judgment to be entered against the underwriter for £l7B 11s 6d, equal to a total of £33,000. The case has been spread over a very long period. The hearings in the King’s Bench Division and the Coiirt of Appeal occupied many weeks, and in the House of Lords 14 days were devoted to the arguments. The costs have been considerable on both sides, and the leading judgment, read by Viscount Sumner recently, extended to about 17,000 words. Lord Carson concurred with Lord Sumner’s judgment, but Lord Phillimore dissented. After a detailed examination of the lists of stamps. Viscount Sumner said that a good deal had been made of Mr Lek’s antecedents and position, quite legitimately, because these matters went to tlje probability of his engaging in a vulgar fraud. His family was of unimpeachable respectability, and he himself was much respected. He was worth more than half a million of English money, and, what was more, he had made it himself. His assets were largely liquid, and he had cash and diamonds in plenty. PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF-MADE WEALTHY.

If he had lost his collection of stamps he still had other collections. Was he the man to depart from the path of rectitude for a sum that must have seemed insignificant to him? Was he the man to risk prosecution and imprisonment when he had all the good things of this world already in his grasp? “ Self-made rich men may squander money on their whims, but they do not readily let large sums slip out of their grasp, because they will not take the trouble to resist. Habit makes them . 2en not only to get money, but to win in a contest of which money is the prize, and even to a demi-millionaire the sums at stake in this claim are important enough to whet his ardour they are not such as he may resign without a struggle.” Of course his integrity might forbid Mr Lek to say for any consideration on earth one word which he did not believe to be true, but if that were the kind of man he was the case was at end. For the purpose of the issue “ one must weigh such evidence as there is, and in my opinion riches and respectability are a guarantee of honesty that do not go very far. The risk which he ran might not seem to him considerable. If he named a valuable stamp, and aajd he had it, how were the underwriters to prove that he had not? ” Lord Sumner said he could well understand that Mr Lek, out of patience with the underwriters who had drawn back from the edge of a compromise and now showed fight, was minded to win by hook or by crook, and was but little restrained from vowing that if he found a gap in hi s figures for him to fill he would find them stamps to fill it with. DISHONESTY OR INCOMPETENCY? The collector’s counsel sought to explain a way, or at least to palliate the seriousness of the position into which Mr Lek had got himself, largely bv drawing a picture of his personality which explained any appearance of his dishonesty by the reality of nis incompetence. They were asked to see in Mr Lek a man of slender technical knowledge, of exaggerated self confidence, incorrigibly inaccurate, and a nasty and random witness, but no more. Accordingly, when the facts were seen in proper perspective, they would prove to be consistent with his honesty, and would reduce the case against him to the suspicions of underwriters’ agents, and the hostility of rival collectors. It appeared to Lord Sumner that the more credence was given to Mr Lek’s general story the les s could forgeries be the explanation of his difficulties If, as he said, he bought certain rarities in the of^Lm 68 -? ° f thls f en ‘ nr Y fabrications of them, if any, would be fewer, and the likelihood of Mr Lek having chanced upon a considerable number of them would be hahf UCh - t K eSS ‘ u f ’ a v Mr Lek pron?ucktrutl! > stamps, now l valuable, were then relatively thnt thl and °,i eap - - U - was the likefv that they would be imitated •the account which Mr Lek save of th„ ?inn ller i m * V i! Uch he accumulated his collection also threw diffiulties i„ his wav He said that he “ought from dealers actual collections formed by amateurs but a cates d S °° n I l f reached where duplicates to be resold would s 0 far exceed he stamps to be retained for the collection that this method would become intolerably cumbrous. "It would be like U y[ ln ß haystacks in order to complete n collection of needles.” p If. however, this was the channel by 2', ’ Lek acquired his hypothetical fabricated rarities, was it on the amatcur who had to sell or on the dealer who bought from him that they were originally Planted? Did the dealer perhaps insert them jn hie purchases before Mr Leks arrival in order to bait his hook? Whichever way it was Mr Lek \va extraordinarily unfortunate in being so often victimised in shops of dealers whose names he could not recall.

If the contention were that Mr Lek rich, ignorant, self-confident, and keen—would be an obvious r'ctim the answer was that it must first be shown that he was known as such to the forger, or the utterer of the forgery, and that he was a recurring customer, or why should he have been so often taken in as he would have them believe? If he dealt over and over again with the two or three men who got to know his weak spots and took advantage of him their Lordships would have had their names. TUB ONUS OF PROOF. With great respect to the Lords Justices of the Court of Appeal it seemed to Lord Sumner that what had really made both the forgery theory and the construction of the claim attractive had been a strong reluctance to say that Mr Lek had tried to cheat, and had backed his effort by perjury. This had been supjiortcd by a canon new to him in the form employed to th« effect that such a man ns Mr Lek could not be convicted of that so long ns any reasonable possibility rcmainedc of explaining his conduct otherwise. Lord Sumner said be looked at it differently, and thought that it was wholly without authoritv. When prisoners could not give evidence such an appeal might have passed muster with a jury, but on a civil issue ho did not think more was required that) a correct appreciation of the incidence and shifting of the onus of proof and a reasonable estimate of the weight pro and can of the various parts of the evidence. Mr Lek's wealth and reputation were material only as ground for considering the probability of such misconduct. The consequences of a verdict against him were quite immaterial. He (Lord Sumner) was as reluctant to make the underwriters pay Mr Lek many th'isands of pounds if he had been guilty of making a false claim as to find him guilty of it if he had not. The whole question was whether it had been proved, and ha thought it had.