"DOUBLE DUMMY."

Mataura Ensign, Volume VI, Issue 284, 24 August 1883, Page 2

"DOUBLE DUMMY."

It is a common thing in sporting papers to see whist problems with a double dummy. We think that the expression fairly describes the situation disclosed by the evidence taken by the Parliamentary Committee on the Otago Dummyism scandal. It is as plain as a pikestaff from the evidence that several persons $asb, topk. up some thousands pf /icres pf Jand

fpr fifteen years iu their owa -names, but &ally for the use of the firm of W. GellipßAND and Co. This was the first dummy. The Scotch say that "dummies canna' .lee," but W; Gellibband and Co. were evidently afraid that they — the dummies — could tell the truth. Like Macbeth, therefore, they would "make assurance doubly sure, and take a bond of fate." They would have ia second dummy to gag the first, No. 2 was an agreement in which Dummy No. 1 acknowledges having taken up certain land, and that he has been obliged to borrow from the firm the money to meet the payments to the Government. In the same precious document the firm contemplate with an even mind the prospect of having to lend all the rent to the end of the term— fifteen yearsinterest free. In return, for the remission of interest, the Dummy agrees to departure their sheep to, the end of the term -that is, to give them exclusive possession of the land. The firm is supposed to hold a promissory note from the dummy for the whole rent paid to any date, and if they withdraw their sheep and refuse to pay more they may sue him for the amount of the P.N. The matter, therefore, stand thus* : The firm get the full use of the land not for the rent but for the interest of the r nt. If at the end of fourteen years they withdraw they could make dummy pay the whole rent back, though he had never used the land. This is a trine too clever. None of the pr imissory notes were put in in evidence, which is enough to prove them mythical, even if it could be supposed that there were men fools enough to rent land and give up the whole use of it to some one who wonld lend them the rent interest free.