To the Fiitor of the Nort-Caisa Dairy News."
On the 3rd inst. I prosecuted a 6 named A. C. Diercks in german Consular Court for theft and embezzlement.
The man had been in my employ as clerk and had- robbed _me of money and goods to the value of Tls. 1,000.00 or more.
He confessed in writing to having committed some five offences, specifying each particular offence in detail.
On this confession he was convicted by the German Consul, and the sentence w: that he should suffer one month's impi sornment for theft, and one month for embezzlement, the sentences to run concurrently.
The effect of this was, by German law, to reduce the sentence to one of six weeks? imprisonment, and as he had been two weeks in prison awaiting trial he will now only have to serve one month. I may mention that in his confession Diercks admitted having made false invoices and fabricated accounts to facilitate the cum-mission of the various crimes to which he confessed.
The reporters of the local papers were in Court and took notes of the case, but, for some reason or other none of the papers have reported the case.
the case is one of importance and interest to the Merchants and Commercial Community of Shanghai and I shall be obliged if you will state why it was nut referred to in your paper.
If cases of this kind are to be hushed up merchants will be more than even at the merey of dishonest clerks and assistants. It is only by giving the fullest ity to cases where convictions are obtained that some improvement may be hoped for.
Tam, ete.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.