A VICTORIAN EMBEZZLER CAUGHT IN LONDON.

Otago Witness, Issue 556, 26 July 1862, Page 8

A VICTORIAN EMBEZZLER CAUGHT IN LONDON.

At Bow-9treet, on April 25th, Duncan Colehurat Patterson, late clerk of the Commissioner of Roads and Bridges, Melbourne, Australia, was brought up in custody of Sub-Inspector E. B. Ryall, of the Melbourne police, upon a warrant signed by,- Charles Prendergast Hackett, Esq., J.P., Melbourne, charge ing him with forgeries and embezzlements to tSe amount of £400. Mr. Ryall produced authenticated copies of the depositions taken before Mr. Hackett, at Melbourne, from which it appeared that the prisoner, who was a clerk in the Commissioner of Eoada and Bridges Office, at Melbourne, was discharged in December last. Wliile iv office, it had been part of hl3 duty to receive the amount of tolls from the Various collectors, and to pay it into the Bank cf Victoria. On the 22nd January he called upon Mr. Cornelius Shennick, toll-collector at Kilburn Gate, near Melbourne, and stated that lie was directed by the Treasurer to call for the money Mr. Shennick had received up to that time for tolls, and to place it to the' account of the Government. Mr. Shennick paid him the money, amounting to £186 4s Gd. The prisoner never paid that money into the bank, but although he was no longer in the service of tho Government, he returned to the office a bank slip, purporting to be a receipt for the £186 4s Gd in question, and bearing the signature "A.B-" being the initials of Mr. Alexander Battersby, the receiving teller at the Bank of Victoria. This bank slip wns a fabrication, flio initials not being in the hand-writing of Mr. Battersby, though somewhat like it, and apparently intended as an imitation. Tho money handed to the prisoner by Mr. Shennick consisted partly of coin and partly of cheques and drafts. Two of these were orders for £5 and £50 respectively, drawn by. Captain Badley, of the 40 th detachment, on the Bank of Victoria, for the public service, and paid to Mr. Shen•nick by a sergeant in the course of his duty. At the end of January the prisoner sailed from Melbourne for England in the Great Britain, paying his passage with the two orders in question. He took the.,passsge in tho name of Clarke, accompanied by a female wiio passed as his wife. Several persons who were On board the vessel about the time of starting saw the prisoner on board, anJ, when the above and other frauds were discovered, a telegraph message was. sent to Livei pool, in anticipation of the arrival of the Great Britain at that port. The prisoner., however, discovered that the police were on his track, and made his escape from Liverpool. Inspector. RVall, who followed by the next packet, but ariived in England a month later than tlie prisoner, followed, and traced him with the greatest , ingenuity and perseverance, and ultimately procured his apprehension. Inspector Williamson, of the London detective force, deposed that when the prisoner was brought in custody to the Police-office, Scotland Yard, he said that the woman who accompanied him to England as his wife had : a bank po a t bill for £700, of which £200 was part of the proceeds of the forgery. The Police Magistrate, Mr. Conic, committed him to the House of Detention, to be removed to Australia in custody of Mr. Ryall, by the next packet.— Home Neivs.