-C OP Y.
Conslosure 5. (6.).
REPORT
124
of an enquiry held by the Committee of the Executive Council
appointed to enquire into a certain charge unde
against Mr. E. Jones, Acting Assist-
-ant Harbour Master.
1.
Your Committee consisted of
-
The Honourable Mr. J.A.S.Bucknill,K.C., Attorney-General,
Chairuan.
The Honourable Mr. A.M.Thomson, Colonial Secretary, and The Honourable Mr. A. G. M. Fletcher, Colonial Treasurer. 2. Your Committee sat on the 25th. September, 1913. Lir. E, Jones was present.
3. Mr. Jones at the outset of the proceedings asked leave to read a statement in his defence. Permission was granted and a statement read a copy being attached hereto Larked "A".
4. As Mr. Jones' statement contains in ita latter portion a sufficiently accurate account of the manner in which the defalca- -tions were carried out, it is thought unnecessary here to enter
into any further Setail upon this point. It is only necessary to
point out that the fraud perpetrated was extremely simple in its method, the Shroff forging in blue pencil the initials of Lr. Jones on the back of a counterfoil and thus inducing ir. Jones to think when undertaking the daily examination of the counterfoil receipt book that these forged initials were his own initials and that he had already checked the entries up to the counterfoil on the back of which his initials were forged; the fact being of course that he had not done ao and that the Suroff pocketted all the fees received daily referred to in the counterfoils covered by and preceding the forged initials. The Shroff's collection book and one of the counterfoil receipt books are attached to this report marked "B" and "C" and are flaged to show a typical instance of
the way in which the fraud was effected. It may here be observed
that in the Shroff's collection book, no Audit llumbers appear and
it should also be remarked here that Mr. Jones could never during
the