The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, NOV. 3, 1885. Borough Rates

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 62, 3 November 1885, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, NOV. 3, 1885. Borough Rates

A list of defaulting ratepayers appears posted outside the office of the Feilding Borough Council. Certain names have affixed to them a modest little cross, which, we may inform the fortunate ones who are thus distinguished, indicates that they will he sued forthwith for the several amounts they owe to the Borough. Those others who are not thus prominently brought before the public, will be ballotted for at the next sittings of the Council, and another fifty victims selected from their number. We cordially agree with this action ef the Coancil, because it is absurd that they should be paying heavy interest on an overdraft when, if all the rates wore collected, such overdraft ought not to exist; or ii it did, would be for a leaser amount. We hope there will be no necessity to drag a number ef our most respected fellow citizens into th* Resident Magistrate's Court for the recovery of such small amounts, but that they will one and all cheerfully pay up, and avert such a calamity. It is a common error to suppose that because an account is a small one it is of little consequence whether it bo paid or not. But a little reflection ought to teach people who hold this view that these small sums, in the aggregate, make a very respectable total. We can speak with a knowledge of this thing, which is eoen acquired by proprietors of newspapers. The accounts they have on their books are individually small, but when they number many hundreds, the money represented by them is very considerable, and would astonish a mere outsider, who judges of the business of a newspaper by the amount of bis irregularly paid quarterly subscription. If well-to-do people would only make an effort, and pay their small accounts, a great deal of unnecessary worry and anxiety would be spared, in every community, to those who do business in it. It would necessarily follow that if this were adopted as a rule, people who are not so well off would be able to be more punctual in their turn, and so on to the end of the chapter. One of the truest proverbs ever uttered is — " Bhort accounts make long friends."