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LEFFERTS AS A FINANCIER. An Extraordinary System of Police Book. keeping-Further Developments. A fact in the recent developments respecting the financial management of the Police Mu. tual Aid Association, that has not heretofore appeared, throws additional light on the extraordinary system of Sergeant Lefferts's bookkeeping. When the Manhattan Bank closed its doors, after the robbery of its bonds last autumn, the Sergeant had an amount. variously estimated at from $8,000 to $10,000, belonging to the widows and orphans of dead members of the association, deposited therein in his name. He made an excuse of the bank's suspension to withhold payment of the various sums due the different claimants, and this sum went on bearing interest. This $10,000 continued to be deposited in Lefferts's name until one of the higher officials in the Police Department, who was not a member of the association. called him to account for it. What would become of this money. should you die he asked. "Oh, my family is honest," Lefferts replied. "I do not question your honesty." was the retort,' nor that of your family. but it's certainly a very loose way of doing business for you to have a small fortune belonging to other people held in bank in your name. with no evidence showing that it belongs to them. and every evidence that it is yours." As a result of this remonstrance. Lefferts had the words in trust for," with the names of the various owners of the money, inserted in his bank book. But he still made thesuspension of the bank an excuse for not paying out any portion of the $10,000, although application for "their share was made to him by several owners. Finally a Mrs. Sutton. whose husband had died in August, the amount due her-$1,228.50-having been collected the succeeding month, appealed to the same official who had remonstrated with Lefferts for depositingthe money in dispute in his own name, She had $1,150 to pay on a house and lot on Long Island. she said, which she would lose if the money were not immediately forthcoming. This time he did not yield so easily to the remonstrance. The bank would not advance the money, he claimed. Give me your bank book and I will get it advanced." said the widow's friend. Thus pressed. Lefferts finally went to the bank, and, having set forth Mrs. Sutton's need, easily obtained the $1,150. The money due another widow whose husband died six months or more ago, and which should have been paid over within less than as many weeks of his death. was only secured by an appeal to the same official. The names of Mrs. Sutton and the second widow appeared in Lefferts's report for January as having received the amounts due them. The members of the association were thus kept in ignorance of the delay to which the poor women were subjected, and when Lefferts was remonstrated with for printing what was not true he claimed that, as he was honest, the money was as good as paid over. Mrs. Sutton. although thus published at the beginning of the year ns in receipt of her $1,228.50. did not receive the $1.150 above mentioned until March 1, and has the difference still owing her. It was only within the past few weeks that the second widow was paid. Lefferts still accounts for the delay by his former argument, that it is occasioned by the Manhattan Bank suspending. and he cannot be made to see that he printed a falsehood in his January report when he set forth that Mrs. Sutton had been paid.
