Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1878 — STORY OF A BANK CASHIER. [ARTICLE]

STORY OF A BANK CASHIER.

Outside the portal of the bank, a commissionaire, named Copp, has for many years taken up his position. Se is not in the service of the bank, but, being a man of tried probity and trustworthiness, his right to the station is tacitly admitted. He is an old soldier, and lias served with distinction in many glorious battles, as the numerous medals, which ho proudly displays upon his breast, bear witness. He has been a Sergeant Major, and comports himself with a suitable dignity. Upon many occasions, on busy days, he has been intrusted with missions of delicacy and responsibility, and has always fulfilled them with tact and exactitude. One morning I was waiting at my desk for the arrival of our early customers, when I saw Copp advancing toward me with his military step, and with even more than his customary dignity. He held in his hand a dirty canvas bag, which he placed on my desk. “Well, Copp,” I said, “whose account is this for?” He stood at attention, and said, after saluting: “This bag, sir, was placed in my hands an hour ago by a man who asked me to take care of it till he came back. Thinking, perhaps, he was a customer of the bank, I took charge of it, and, as he hasn’t come back, I thought I had better bring it to you, sir, ns it seems to contain money. ” I opened the bag and found it contained £750 in bank-notes and gold; but there was no indication of the person to whom it belonged, either written upon a paper, ns is customary, or upon the backs of the notes. Copp, seeing my surprise, added : “ I beg pardon, sir, but I may as well tell you that the party who handed mo the bag was decidedly inebriated—in fact, sir, I might say drunk. He could scarcely stand, and didn’t seem hardly able to speak.” “Very well,” I replied, “you may leave it with mo, and, when the man comes, bring him in here.” “ Yes, sir,” said Copp, who saluted and retired. I put the bag on one side, fully expecting that the owner would soon call and claim it. At the end of the day, however, nobody had called, although Copp had kept a sharp lookout at the door. I was much surprised at this, and put by the money. The next day and the next passed by, and still no claimant appeared. 1 interrogated Copp as to the description of the man. He said he was a short, thick-set man, with dark hair and whiskers, but no mustache. He wore a black coat, very seedy-looking, and his face and hand's and shirt were very dirty; “ looked as if he had been on the loose, sir,” he added. At the expiration of another week, I inserted advertisements in all the principal daily papers, stating that a bag containing a sum of money had been found, and inviting the owner to claim it and specify the contents. No satisfactory answers were received to the advertisement, and the question remained, what was to be done with the money t We could not place it to any account in the bank, and we could not, of course, open an account in an unknown name. The manager was of the opinion that, ns the money had been left in the hands (if Sergt. Copp, who was not an official of the bank, and, besides, who was standing in the street at the time, there was no evidence of its having been intended to bo lodged in the bank, and that, therefore, it should be handed over to the comission aire. Upon my telling Copp this, however, he stoutly refused to have anything to do with it. “It was not his,” he Baid, ‘' and he had only taken charge of it upon the supposition that it belonged to one of the customers of the bank.” The matter was finally settled by opening a deposit account in the joint names of Copp and myself. Two years roiled by, and nothing further was heard of the mysterious depositor, and I began to think that the amount would ultimately fall into the hands of the worthy Sergt. Copp or his family, to whom it would be a small fortune. At length, however, one morning, Sergt. Copp walked up to my desk with an expression of great pleasure upon liis honest face. “Beg your pardon, sir,” he commenced; “ can I speak to you for a few minutes?”

“ Certainly,” said I; “ what is it ?”• “ Well, sir, do you remember that bag of money—two years ago ?” “ Of course I do,” A replied with interest; “ who could forget it ?” “ Well, sir, I think I’ve got a clew to the man who left it with me. ” “ It appeared that the Sergeant’s son was apprenticed to an upholsterer in the city. Among the workmen in the establishment who had recently joined was a French polisher. One day, in the oourse of conversation, he told his fellow-work-men the following facts concerning a foreman of the firm of Smith & Jones, where he had formerly worked. This foreman, whose name was Thompson, had been with the firm a great many years; he was intrusted by his employers from time to time with the collection of large amounts of money, and had always been found honest and upright. Upon one occasion, about two years before, a shipping order had come to the firm for a quantity of furniture from a new foreign house of which they had some suspicions. The goods were ordered to do shipped on a certain day, and it was agreed that they were to be paid for in money before being placed on board. As the order came to £750, the foreman went down himself in charge of the goods, with strict injunctions from his employers either to bring them back or the money. The goods were placed on board the ship from the lighter in the docks—so much was ascertained—but the foreman, who had received the

money and had given a receipt for it, I was never seen again, either by the firm or by his wife and family. The lighterman, who had been present at the payment of the money, and had conveyed Thompson ashore, deposed that he had not been able to get tne goods on board the day when they were sent down, and Thompson passed the night in a sailors’ coffee-house in the neighborhood of the docks, in order to be in time for their transhipment in the morning. When he armed on board he acted very strangely, and the lighterman noticed that his watca and chain were missing. Altogether Thompson’s appearance was that of a man who was still suffering from the effects of a night’s debauch. On taking him ashore, the lighterman had conducted Thompson, at his urgent request, to a public house, and had there left him. From this point impenetrable mystery hung over the wholo matter. Had Thompson decamped with the money, or had he been the victim of some foul play ? The first hypothesis was scouted by Thompson’s friends and fellow-workmen. He had shown himself for more than twenty years a man of probity; he was a sober and prudent man, whese only delight was in his home and his children. He was always preaching habits of saving and economy to the men under him, and, when he disappeared, it was found that he had a considerable sum in the savings bank, which he had never touched. It was incredible, therefore, that lie could have embezzled his employer’s money. The second hypothesis seemed the more reasonable one. But if he had been murdered, how had his body been disposed of ? The river had been closely watched from the Tower to the sea, but no corpse answering to the description had ever been fouud. Young Copp had carried this story to his father, and the Sergeant had with much difficulty succeeded in discovering Thompson’s unfortunate wife and family, who were now reduced to great poverty. From them he learned the confirmation of the sad story, and felt sure that at last he had found the missing clew. The good Sergeant then waited on Messrs. Smith & Jones, in whose employment Thompson had been, and ascertained two facts which confirmed him in his supposition. The £750 had been paid by the foreign firm which had bought the goods in exactly the same proportion of notes and gold as the sum left with the commissionaire, and the date upon which they were paid corresponded with that of the mysterious deposit. The unfortunate hiatus in the chain of evidence was that nobody knew the numbers of the bank notes which had formed part of it. * “ What do you think, sir?” continued Copp. I replied that I thought the solution probable, but that we should proceed very cautiously in the testing of every proof. After turning overthe matter carefully in my mind, I came to the conclusion that the only means of identifying the sum paid to Thompson with that left with Sergt. Copp would be a comparison of the numbers of the notes in each instance. But then came a formidable difficulty. The fpreign firm had been dissolved aud its members had left England. They had already informed Messrs. Smith & Jones that they had omitted to take the numbers of the bank notes, which'had been remitted to them from the continent. The plan I at last hit upon was as follows: When the £750 were paid into the deposit account, the notes which formed a portion of the sum were sent by us to the Bank of England in the regular course of business, and were there canceled. I ascertained at the Bank of England the name and address of the firm to whom the notes had been first issued, and then traced them through the several hands through which they bad passed. Following up the clew, I discovered that some of them had beeu sent to a bank at Paris. I wrote to tin's bank, inquiring to whom they had been paid, and to my great gratification was informed that they had been sent to the very firm in Loudon a few days before they had handed them over to Thompson.

Here, then, was the missing link, and I had no longer any doubt in my mind that the money paid to us was the same as that which had been lost by Messrs. Smith & Jones. Honest Sergt. Copp was overjoyed, and wished to go at once to Mrs. Thompson and give her the good news. This, however, I would not permit, as I thought it would be better to endeavor, in the first instance, to ascertain the fate of the poor foreman. I, therefore, called upon Messrs. Smith & Jones, and informed them that I had obtained certain information, which led me to believe that a sum of £750 paid into the bank was identical with that lost by them, but that the only person who could satisfactorily prove the fact was Thompson,and that he must therefore be found. They promised to do their best to aid my inquiries, and employed a detective for the purpose. In the course of a few weeks they were able to inform me that Thompson had been dicovered in Paris, working under an assumed name, and that, on being informed of the discovery, he had at once come over to his family, who were overjoyed at his return. On the following day Thompson called at the bank, and was recognized by Sergt. Copp as the very individual who had left the money with him. The explanation given by Thompson of the transaction was, that his coffee had been drugged at the house where he slept, and his watch stolen from him. He had, however, nerved himself by a violent effort the following morning to bo at his post on the lighter, and, although half stupefied, had with some difficulty received and counted over the money ; that on going ashore he had' repaired to a public house near the docks, in order to get some soda water ; that, after taking it, he had rambled through the streets on his way to the workshop. His mind, however, was a compdete blank as to everything which occurred afterward, until he found himself Jying in a narrow alley, surrounded by illlooking people. When he came to himself he was paralyzed by fear on finding, as he thought, that he had been robbed of his bag. Hia braiD was dazed with the thought of the fearful accusations which would be certainly brought against him. Who would believe that he was guiltless of any crime when appearances were so much against him ? How could he explain avav his seeming state of intoxication when he went on board in the morning? And, above all, how could he explain the loss of the bag ? He could remember that up to a certain time, after leaving the public house, he still had the bag safe m the breast-pocket of his coat, for he had a distinct recollection of keeping his arm tightly pressed against it. He had a dim recollection of finding himself amid streets of tall stone houses, and of reeling against several people on the pavement; but after that his memory was altogether blotted out. All was darkness and vacancy until he awoke. Then a feeling of blank despair took possession of his mind. How could he ever again show himself among his friends—he who had held his head so high, and had been so forward in denouncing vice and drink ? He would be a laughing-stock to all the woild ; then the stain upon his honesty! Messrs. Smith & Jones he knew to lie very hard people ; they never had spared anybody in their business dealings, and they would certainly bring a criminal ohsrge

against him. The idea was horrible. He would rather die than submit to such indignity. Pondering these things over in his mind, he had wandered heedlessly through the streets without remarking whither he was going. Fate or instinct seemed to lead him to the riverside again, and hefound himself at last at St. ffcatherine’s dock. Exactly facing where he stood wits a flaming placard, announcing the departure that day of a boat direct for Calais, at a very low rate of passage. The thought darted into his mind: Why not cut the difficulties at once, and put the sea between himself and the scene of his disgrace ? It was a cowardly temptation which, if his intellect had been in a clearer state, would have been instantly rejected with scorn, but the poisonous drug which he had imbibed seemed to have utterly unmanned him and deprived him of the courage necessary to face his trouble. He yielded to the temptation and made his way through to Paris, where, under an assumed name, he succeeded in getting work, for he was very expert in his business. Nothing could exceed the delight of the worthy commissionaire at having been the means of clearing up the mystery, except, iudeed, his pride in retelling the oft-told tale. Nor was his honesty unrewarded in a more substantial manner. Messrs. Smith & Jones presented him with £IOO as a recognition of his integrity and intelligence.