ANOTHER FRAUDULENT BANKER.

Colonist, Issue 26, 19 January 1858, Page 3

ANOTHER FRAUDULENT BANKER.

A trial for a bank fraud yesterday at Stirling resulted in a verdict which promises to form a very useful example. Mr. Salmon, the manager of the Falkirk branch of the Commercial Bank of Scotland, was recently discovered to have misappropriated between £ 25,000 an J ,£30,000 of the sums entrusted to him. He was a Justice of the Peace, an elder of the church, an exprovost of the town, and a prominent political leader. When he found that his delinquency had become known, he absconded, and hanged himself in the stable of a public-house. The coiirse of legal justice was therefore in his case ended; but there had been two clerks in the establishment named Reid and Gentles, who had been fully cognisant of his proceedings, as they had abetted him in falsifying the books, although they do not appear to have participated in the slightest degree in the plunder. These men the bank were advised to prosecute criminally, and the jury, by a majority of nine to six, has just pronounced them guilty. The considerations that, as very young men, they were greatly under the influence of a personage enjoying the local position of Mr. Salmon, that they had hitherto conducted themselves respectably, and that they had not personally had a siugle farthing of the money, were at the same time allowed due weight, and they were recommended in the strongest possible manner to the leniency of the Court. Lord Handyside, the judge, concurred in this view, within proper limits, aud, instead of transportation, their sentence was 18 months'" imprisonment in Perth Penitentiary. The wholesome lesson will accordingly go forth that all persons who wilfnlly assist in concealing pecuniary mal-practices, even though they may themselves take no share of the proceeds of the fraud, are liable to ignominious punishment. Generally, in such cases, the plea that the parties have derived no pecuniary or other benefit from the defalcations which have been tolerated excites a certain kind of false sympathy, as if they had been actuated by no bad motive, or, perhaps, even by a kindly and unselfish one. Nothing could be more vicious than such a doctrine, and there will be no safety in the management of any public company until it is put down. All who accept situations of trust have a clear duty before them. If they neglect that duty it must be for some motive of personal gratification. Many who are indifferent about money will break a trust solely that they may feed their vanity. Thus, occasionally in boards of direction humble men will wink at misdeeds by which they ostensibly gain nothing, merely to curry favour with more presuming spirits. Some, again, from a grasping conceit or a desire to have a field for favouritism, will accept positions of responsibility to watch over the property of others which they never intend in the slightest degree to fulfil, or for which they may be utterly incapable. They take the reward and cheat their clients of the service—an unstigmatised sort of larceny of whish two or three notable instances have lately been furnished. Others will assist a personal acquaintance to help himself to the funds of strangers just as they would let a favourite dog commit depredation on the premises of their neighbours. Some are corrupted by social amenities and a dazzling patronage. But for such people, the tribe of which Colonel Waugh and Mr. Salmon are apparently specimens would enjoy a very limited career. Yet, although the motive in each of these cases is as selfish and despicable as if it had sprung simply from the acquisitive propensity; society 'has hitherto taken little account of them. Let it be understood that every breach of duty written or implied is primarily alike disgraceful and involves liability, whatever may be the subsequent pleas in mitigation of punishment, and such exposures as have defaced the commercial records of the civilised world during the past four or five years will gradually cease. The public have the matter in their own hands, and the case now reported from Stirling gives them an important precedent in the right direction.— Times, October 2.