B.—l [PT. ll].

VIII

Failure to account for £183 10s. lid. by an officer of the Public Works Department resulted in this amount being lost to the State. The officer is now deceased, and there is no chance of recovering the amount, which will require to be written of! with the sanction of Parliament. Remittances in respect of a departmental publication, and other moneys totalling £28 16s. Id., were stolen from inward letters by a cadet in the Department of Agriculture, who disappeared. The amount will require to be written off with the sanction of Parliament. Draughting-instruments of the value of £4 10s. were pawned by a cadet in the Lands Department. He was dismissed from the Service. The instruments were recovered. The theft of £11 7s. in bank-notes and postal notes from letters led to a messenger in the Post and Telegraph Department being placed on probation for two years and ordered to make restitution. Dismissed from the Service. The theft of numerous postal packets resulted in a messenger employed by the Post and Telegraph Department being placed on probation by the Supreme, Court for three years. No loss of money occurred. Dismissed from the Service. The theft of £342 17s. 9d. resulted in an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department being committed to the Supreme Court. He was sentenced to two years reformative treatment. Dismissed from the Service. The amount will require to be written of! with the sanction of Parliament; Failure to account for £11 12s. received by an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department led to his being sentenced in the Supreme Court. Dismissed from the Service. The amount will require to be written of! with the sanction of Parliament. Failure to account for £15 occurred in the Post and Telegraph Department in circumstances in which there was insufficient evidence to warrant any officer being charged with theft. The loss will require to be written off with the sanction of Parliament. An officer of the Post and Telegraph Department was sentenced to reformative treatment for the theft of £165 by means of forgery and failure to account for £40. He was dismissed from the Service. The amount will require to be written off with the sanction of Parliament. Failure to account for £20 received by him led to an ex-officer of the Post and Telegraph Department being charged with theft of the sum named. In the Supreme Court a jury returned a verdict of " Not guilty." The loss will require to be written off with the sanction of Parliament. The theft of a letter containing a 10s. bank-note resulted in a cadet employed by the Railway Department being placed on probation for three years. No loss occurred to the Department. Dismissed from the Service. The theft of a number of postal packets led to a message-boy employed by the Post and Telegraph Department appearing before the Juvenile Court and being admitted to probation for a period of three years and ordered to refund the amounts stolen. Dismissed from the Service. Failure to account for £80 14s. 2d. received by him led to an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department being sentenced to reformative detention. Restitution was made. Dismissed from the Service. Failure to account for £144 17s. Bd. received by an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department led to a sentence of twelve months' reformative detention. Restitution was made. Dismissed from the Service. For the theft of postal packets from which he abstracted £2 os. 6d. a message-boy employed by the Post and Telegraph Department was ordered to come up for sentence when called upon at any time within two years. Restitution was made. Dismissed from the Service. For the alleged theft of £71 lis. Id. an officer holding the position of tablet-porter and Postmaster appeared before the Court at Dunedin on the 25th June. He was admitted to probation for three years. Dismissed from the service. Theft of letters resulted in an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department being sentenced to two years' detention in a Borstal institute. Restitution was made. Dismissed from the Service. Failure to account for £43 19s. 9d. received by an officer of the Railway Department led to nstructions to prosecute being issued. He was admitted to probation for two years. The amount has been refunded and the officer dismissed from the Service. Theft of sums amounting to £1 12s. 3d. representing revenue led to the dismissal of a cadet from the Railway Department. Restitution will be made. Failure to account for £60 Is. 7d. was revealed as a result of a departmental inspection of station accounts, Railway Department. The officer responsible is deceased, and restitution was made by his representatives. The theft of a number of postal packets has been admitted by an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department, and he will be charged with the offences in due course. Prosecutions of twelve pensioners for offences against the various Pensions Acts were instituted by the Pensions Department, and in all cases convictions were entered against the offenders. The sum of £143 19s. 10d., representing wages of employees held overnight by an officer of the Lands Department, was stolen from the departmental safe in his house. The matter is in the hands of the police. A person who was not employed in the Service was admitted to probation for twelve months for theft of a postal packet. Two persons not in the employment of the Government fraudulently obtained £1,110 from the Post Office Savings-bank. One was sentenced by the Supreme Court to detention at a Borstal institute for a period not exceeding three years, and the other ordered reformative detention not exceeding twelve months. A sum of £1,028 was recovered by the police, and the remainder will be made good by the officers whose failure to carry out the regulations made the fraud possible.