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Nebraska Bank Cashier Flees; Accounts Short Cashier of Belvidere Bank Disappears on Same Day Brother Goes to Prison For Defalcation. Lincoln, May 4.-(Special.)--William Barge, cashier of the Farmers State bank, Belvidere, Neb., has disappeared from home, leaving a shortage in his accounts. He left Belvidede last Monday, the day when his brother, Herbert H. Barge, cashier of the Farmers State bank of Hoskins, Neb., entered the state penitentiary here to serve a term for defalcation from that bank, to which he confessed. The disappearance of the second Barge brother was a mystery until yesterday when his wife received a letter from him which said in part: "I am short in my accounts in the bank. I am going away and will not be back." The letter also is said to have admitted a shortage of $2,000 in Barge's account with the Belvidere school district. The letter was mailed on a Northwestern railroad train somewhere on the Norfolk division. J. E. Hart, secretary of the department of finance and revenue, sent Bank Examiner J. R. Riley to take charge of the bank at Belvidere. Riley has reported that he found about $15,000 of what he considered "bad paper," including a loan of $5,000 made to Herbert H. Barge, the brother now in the penitentiary. At the time of the last examination the Belvidere bank had loans of $96,500 and deposits of $85,300. A wave of bank troubles is sweeping over the state, due to "general cussedness," according to Mr. Hart, and not to any general financial troubles in the country. Following the recent closing of the Farmers State bank at Hadar, Neb., it was announced today that William Lefferdink, the cashier. will be prosecuted. C. L. Dort, an assistant attorney general, went to Oshkosh, Neb., today to appoint a receiver for a bank there. Attorney General Davis said last evening that he will leave today for another town which he declined to name to appoint a receiver for a bank.
