GIGANTIC FRAUD.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 274, 1 May 1873, Page 6

GIGANTIC FRAUD.

A most scandalous affair, which has created an immense sensation throughout Germany and Europe, occurred a few days ago in Munich, The breakdown of the great Spitzeder bank, in Munsch, is the talk of the day. Miss Adele Spitzeder, the daughter of an actor, already past the best years of life, and formerly an actress herself, took it into her head about three years ago to take up money at a high rate of interest. She got plenty of money, paid most punctually her 10 per cent, interest monthly for it, and lent it out again at 12 per cent, monthly. No wonder then, that among the stupid and ignorant she found plenty- of customers. Miss Spitzeder was, besides, famed for her great piety. She wore round her neck a large goldeu cross, went twice a day to mass, and was on terms of the greatest intimacy with the Ultramontane Bavarian clergy, who exhorted their petitioners to town and country to deposit their savings with Miss Spitzeder, who would pay them 120fl. per annum for every 400fl. deposited at her bank She-waß thus enabled to carry on for several years this sort of business only by lending out the money she received at a still higher rate, and by speculating on a grand scale in house property, and on Change in one instance it is stated that for 7,000 she advanced she received a promissory note for 16,000 florins. But the business could never have flourished as it did, and she could never have got as customers the small country people, if she hadn't entered into a close alliance with Ultraraontanism, by whose aid she managed to get thousands of ignorant country people to deposit their savings with her, attracted as they were besides by the splendid gain. It became, at last, quite a mania with the working classes of Munich to invest their money at Spikzoders'. People declared they wouldn't work any longer, as they were enabled to live on the interest at Miss A dele's. The unavoidable breakdown, with all its fearful consequences, came at last. She had, during the last few weeks, several times not been able to pay the bills presented to her, and the other day a deputation from the Munich Court of Justice snddenly appeared at her banking office, and demanded to see the hooks. But no books had be'en used in this inAiae^s^ fevw^ega \ *U tfcM WS to b§

found were loose bits of paper, on which notes had been made. The judicial researches and inquiries, however, resulted in the fact that the whole of the assets amount to 700,000 -florins, whilst her liabilities reach the fearful sum of 15,000,000. This result having been arrived at, notice was immediately sent to her private mansion to arrest her. She was found in her buodoir, the golden cross round her neck, reading in breviary, and smoking a cigarette. The excitement and fury of the populace in Munich was such that the military had to be confined to the barracks, as at one time a revolution was feared. Soldiers ocenpied the street in which the banking establishment is situated, and all precautions were taken against a popular outbreak, which happily did not take place. -The scandal is immense ; persons of the highest rank, wellknown Catholic clergyman, even a bishop, are seriously compromised ; the editors of the principal Ulatramontane newspapers of Munich have fled, together with other compromised personages, to escape punishment. The misery will be fearful, as the bulk of the money belonged to thousands of small people in the country. This affair will happily prove a most serious blow to Ultramontanism in Bavaria, and so be in the end a blessing to the nation. It also throws a glaring light on the state of popular education and social affairs altogether in Bavaria under the guidance of the Ultramontane clergy. The trial won't take place for some time yet, the* Bavarian Government being occupied at present with the task of finding accomplices and collecting materials for what promises to become a very sensational trial.