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Show i i . i ' " r. ' J Alleged Misappropriation of $20,000,000 of Hct- ropolitan Funds Causes a , Stir in- Financial . Circles. : ; NEW YORK, Feb. 25. Charges of the most startling character against Interests Inter-ests identified with the management of , the Metropolitan Street Railway com-- com-- pany have been made to District Attorney Attor-ney Jerome. They were in the form of a brief that was placed in the hands of Mr. Jerome several days -ago by lawyers law-yers representing a Wall street house of prominence. . . ' The brief .declared that funds aggregating aggre-gating $20,000,000 had been diverted from the assets of the Metropolitan Street Railway company at the time that company com-pany was merged with the Interurban Railway company." - The purpose of making the complaint to Mr. Jerome and placing him in possession pos-session of alleged facts and figures was . - to have him criminally prosecute the men alleged to be responsible for the . losa or misappropriation of the money. The men against whom the allegations are made are of international note as financiers, and have been conspicuous in this city and country for a great many years. - Stock Exchange Notified. - Much of the same Information given to Mr. Jerome has been laid before the governing board of the Stoek exchange. . The board held a secret meeting to investigate in-vestigate the matter and decide !f it calls for any action on the vpart of the exchange. ' . , The enormous sura, it is declared in the brief filed1 with Mr. Jerome, has been misappropriated from time to time, extending over a period of years. He has been a irked to investigate particularly particu-larly the construction accounts of the company, also the dividend accounts from the time most of the lines of the corporation were operated by horse power. ; . . So important are he persons affeotfed by the charges and so vast the amount involved that Mr. Jerome has moved V with great caution in the matter. All of the alleged facts and papers submitted submit-ted to him were turned over by Mr. Jerome to his chief assistant, Mr. Schurman, and those having knowledge of the matter were Instructed to maintain main-tain the strictest secrecy. Stock Went Down. . . In some manner rumors hat the' District Dis-trict Attorney had been appealed to reached Wall street and caused a, slump in the price- of Metropolitan Railway stock and in the shares of the Metro- politan Securities company. ' Prompt denials by officials of the company that there wa anything wrong on the "inside" "in-side" of the corporation checked the slump and heavy stirportlng orders regained re-gained some of the loss. So far, the District Attorney strys he has not discovered proof of criminality in any of the evidence submitted to him and, as the matter now stands, will not lay the case before the grand jury. He Was Incensed when he learned that his name was being; used in Wall street in connection with the rumors, and it was only when he was informed of that fact that he consented to discuss the matter even briefly. To a direct question whether wheth-er there had been a defalcation he replied re-plied emphatically In the negative. Asked if complaint had not been made to him and an investigation demanded, he refused to answer. B-aid on the Stock. A sensational attack was made on the 6tock of the Metropolitan Street Railway Rail-way company, by a clique of bears who took advantage of, if they did not circulate, cir-culate, a series of stories reflecting: up- on the financial condition of the trac tion company. The stock was forced ' from 139 to 136 on sales of over 22.000 , shares. Prompt denials of the stories and heavy buying by Metropolitan brokers bro-kers rallied the stock to 137. Despite : the denials, however. Wall street men expressed the belief that, while the rumors ru-mors .were undoubtedly exaggerated, there was an element of truth in them which was bound to come out, despite the attempt of the interested parties to cover it up. , The first rumor in Wall street was a report that there had been a $20,000,000 defalcation and that several of the prominent officials of the company were more or less concerned. This story waa . met by an emphatic denial issued by Charles "E. Warren, secretary and treasurer treas-urer and one of the directors of the - Metropolitan. |