The Crown Advocate took the jury. {in detail through the evidence which had been given, summarizing figures and emphasizing. the discrepancies in the returns given to the bank by the defendant and the actual facts as determined by skin exports em-the charges, though the bank were well aware of the state of affairs in April they did not, prosecate_ until the end of June or the beginning of July. The defendant believed that if the money had been paid, nothing more would have been heard of the charges. In answer to this. the jury had the evidence of two bank ficial, that the matter had been Dut into the hands of their legal advisers in May, They had held their hatid as they relied on the possibility of getting the money out of the compradore, Their action was neither improper nor _impossible, as they were not anxious to prosecute, being 2 mercantile concern and wanting the money. this the jury: had to form their own opinion, He emphasized that the jury had] to confine their attention to" the three charges, though a certain mount of other evidence bad been ven.
They were there to try the! charges that the defendant, being a director of the company, made and. published statements which were false to his own knowledge with intent to deceive and defraud] the Chartered Bank.
In regard 10] the three charges he said that the Crown must prove (1) that defendant was a director; (2) thi he published the statements; (3) that the statements. were false in material facts; (4) that the defendant knew them to be false; and (5) that the defendant intended to deceive or defraud the Chartered Bank, Chamber of Commerce. the jury whether they could believe! that the defendant was unaware of the discrepancies between the goods fu his godown and his—returns, which at one time amounted to a Iahk, He held that the defendant must have known, and that his actions were those of a dishonest man, After going into further detail as to the evidence, he pointed ut that the defendant had produced: no documentary evidence to support them, he said, After dealing with the charge asked the jury to in finding the de In his reply Mr. Hartopp read the jury they should ant's knowledge and made by him defondwith intent to defraud, He said that there was absolutely no direct idence regarding the first charge, and it was astounding to him that a jury should be on nothing more than deductions. He dealt at length with the evidence regarding the other charges, pointing out that the absence of concealment by his client and his readiness to furnish explanations to the bank were proofs of his honesty. He also explained the money alleged by the defendant to be owed to him by the compradore, and the de-fondant's trust in his compradore.
The Summing Up In his summing up, Judge King said that he would not go into details' regarding the facts and the evidence, because of the long and full addresses of both counsel and the documentary nature of much of the evidence, which the july had before it, Before touching upon the evidence; he outlined the history of the case. The bank sand the defendant entered into commercial relations in 1926, and on January 81, 1928, the defendant had signed 'a Trust Receipt. To October 1928, business relations had been ordinary, but thereafter the bank commenced to reduce the overdraft, February the defendant drew cer tain cheques which the bank asked him to explain, In March the bane stopped the defendant drawing on' the overdraft, and on April 4 they received the return from the de-fondant which was the cause of the Dealing with: points (1) and (2) he said there should be no difficulty in considering them proved.—He reviewed the evidence accordingly. So far as point (8) went the Crown that the state-of rabbit skins and false as to other skins. He went a mi fact vin law, and continued to polar Alleged Shortage of Skins To deceive, ho said, meant to} create m state of mind, and to defraud to.take a certain course of action, The questions the jury had to decide were whether the statements were false in material facts, whether the defendant knew them 'o be false, and whether there was intent to deceive or defraud. He then reviewed the evidence in some detail.
So far as the first charge concerned there was no direct evi dence of a shortage in skins, and in regard to charges two and three the defendant had admitted the statements were incorrect, as he confidently expected his compradore to make good the deficiency. So far fas the evidence of the experts was} concerned the jury should consider} that which was most favourable 10) the defendant, and His Lordship concluded by reminding the jury) that if they had any honest doubts, not shrinking from the facts, they should give the defendant the benefit, After an absence of one hour and 25 minutes, the jury found the defendant not guilty on the first charge, but guilty on the other two charges.
In passing sentence His} Lordship remarked that he would! not say much, The charges were very serious; they went to the root of commercial morality in Shanghai, He regretted having to spoil any} man's career, but on the evidence he had very little ground to be lenient. He, therefore, imposed a sentence of one year's imprisonment, Turn-{ing to the jury he thanked them for thole services in this very long trial and exempted them from further service for a period of four years.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.