Evading Payment of Just Debts.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 198, 20 February 1895, Page 2

Evading Payment of Just Debts.

In the Bankruptcy Court yesterday Mr Justice Richmond remarked upon the unconcern with which people evaded payment of their just debts It seemed to him that for every bankrupt who' went through the Court there were at least ten persons who by some means or other escaped payment of what they owed to the insolvent estate. Too much appeared to be spent upon unnecessary luxuries, and there was at the same time too much indifference to one's just debts. The Official Assignee concurred in His Honor's opinion. In one estate which he had just been winding up there were £250 of book debts which could not be recovered. In another case which was before the Court the book debts were stated at £150, and the bankrupt estimated them to be worth £10 only, and yet less than £1 was real* ised trom them. His Honor observed that the Fleet Prison and the Marshalsea of a past age were not pleasing institutions, and neither was the present state of things one we shonlcl be content with. There seemed to be a widespread indifference to pecuniary obligations! The Official Assignee said there was too much reckless credit given. His Honor agreed that that was one side of the case ; the other side was that there was too much recklsss expense incurred. In a number of the cases which came before him for orders of discharge His Honor followed the practice which he has recently laid down for him of granting the discharge conditionally upon the bankrupt confessing judgment for a proprtion of his liabilities—one fourth, in fact— so that the creditors might have the prospect of obtaining a dividend of 5s in the pound. In making one of those orders His Honor said " I do not know how the plan will answer, but at any rate it is less immoral than an unconditional discharge." The Court adjourned to the first of April which His Honor drily observed as a very suitable day. — Times.