Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 557

[v]

11. All sums of money due for Crown Rent were to be paid to a shroff specially appointed for the purpose. Persons coming to pay rent would generally bring with them some memorandum of the amount due or their last receipt. The shroff would pass that on to ALVES, or in any case of difficulty would go to ALVES, who, upon being satisfied that the proper amount was tendered, would enter the amount and the number of the receipt into a small cash book which he kept, he would then fill in a printed form of receipt taken from a book with counterfoil and consecutive numbers and give it to the shroff to make an entry thereof in his cash book, the shroff would then chop the receipt and hand it, when duly signed, to the person bringing the money. At the end of the day the shroff would compare his book with that of ALVES, if both agreed the amount was reported to Mr. CARVALHO, the cashier, who made a memorandum for the bank and the money was paid in at once.

*

12. We have stated above that the receipt should be duly signed, we beg to explain this as follows:-Previous to the 14th December, 1883, all the receipts for Crown Rents, Taxes, Licences, &c. were signed by Mr. CARVALHO, the chief clerk and cashier, but on account of complaint made by CARVALHO that the signing of these receipts took up too much of his time, a change was made and in a memorandum dated the 14th De- cember, 1883, Mr. LISTER, who was then Treasurer, stated that it would tend to the better working of the department if receipts, licences and other formal documents were in future in each case to be signed by the officer responsible for the issue or the correct- ness of the document, instead of being signed by the cashier himself.

From that date accordingly all receipts for Crown Rents were signed by ALVES and chopped by the shroff.

This placed the whole control over the receipt of Crown Rents in the hands of ALVES.

13. It was never intended that ALVES should receive money; he was merely to control and check the receipt of money by the shroff, but if money was sent or paid direct to him (ALVES) there was no control over him, and as he signed the receipts. himself it was easy for him, if so inclined, to make away with such money, unless pre- cautions were taken by some checks or surprise visits in the department itself, and unless his Rent Roll was added up and balanced soon after the expiry of the year, if not at the end.of every six months.

14. In the absence of ALVES' cash books it is impossible to ascertain the specific and separate sums embezzled, and even if it could be ascertained it would serve no practical purpose, as the method adopted by ALVES in his defalcations appears to have been as follows:-

13. When money was sent or taken to him, he either—

(a) Paid it over to the shroff;

(b) Paid part of it to the shroff, taking with him the printed form of receipt in which appeared in figures the amount he paid over but in words at length the real amount which had been paid to him. The shroff could not read English but knew English figures, he compared the figures on the receipt with the money handed over to him, made an entry in his cash book, chopped the receipt and handed it back to ALVES, who then made the figures agree with the other part of the receipt and gave or sent it to the payer;

(c) Or else he appropriated the whole amount sent to him and made out a receipt on a printed form of his own, which he must have had printed for the purpose, signed the name, and chopped it with a forged chop. In the case (b) he made the counterfoil correspond with the amount handed by him to the shroff, and not with the amount paid to himself. In the Rent Roll he entered the full amount which he had received, while in his cash book (or Daily Collection book) he entered only the amount paid by him to the shroff.