The Ashland Union

THE DEFAULTING CASHIER: OF THE UNION BANK OF LONDON.

The following report on the recent frauds of their chief cashier has been issued on this evening, by the Union Bank of London. It gives a clear summary of the means employed, and confirms the anticipations as to the degree of loss sustained, the total being £263,000.

William George Pullinger was appointed a cashier of this bank in April, 1839, having previously held a similar situation in the banking house, of Sir Claude Scott & Co., and, after sixteen years of most efficient, zealous, and it is still believed, faithful service in subordinate capacities, was, about five years ago, raised to the situation of chief cashier, and such was the confidence reposed in him by the directors and managers, and their satisfaction with the manner in which he discharged his duties, that about three months since they voluntarily raised his salary to £600 per annum.

His duties as chief cashier were to superintend the other cashiers, to procure checks for money, to keep their tills supplied, and it devolved upon him to pay all checks, gold and silver coin, bank-notes, &c., which were not required for the purposes of this bank, to the Bank of England, accompanied by the docket, specifying the particulars of each payment, and by the "pass book" of the Bank of England, which was necessarily in his official charge, and an account of these payments was also furnished by Pullinger to the principal ledger-keeper.

In the ordinary course of business, Pullinger daily sent a junior clerk for the pass book, which contained the acknowledgment by the Bank of England of the cash paid in, and it was the duty of Pullinger to deliver the pass book to the ledger-keeper, whose duty it would then become to check the entries in it against the Bank of England by the items in his ledger. The ledger-keeper, on finding his account tally with the pass book, would report the Bank of England balance to the accountant, to be posted in the general ledger, when any error in the Bank of England balance would disturb the general balance of the day, and become the subject of investigation.

On Thursday last, the 19th instant, in consequence of some information, application was made to the Bank of England for their statement of the balance of this bank, when a deficit of no less than £263,070 was discovered. Pullinger, who was absent at the time attending a funeral of a relative, was immediately followed by a director and a manager, and brought back, when he at once confessed that, from losses on the Stock-Exchange, he had, from time to time, since his appointment as chief cashier, abstracted large sums from the charges taken over to the Bank of England which he had concealed from the ledger keeper by exhibiting to him a fabricated pass book, in which the balance agreed with what it appeared in the accountant's general ledger. He was then given into custody.

London Times, April 25.