Pound of Flesh

NZ Truth, Issue 1180, 12 July 1928, Page 6

Pound of Flesh

THE Dunedin City Council boasts of ■*■ its cheap gas. cheap electricity and cheap tram fares, but listen-in to its methods of collecting- overdue gas accounts. The hard-up father of six children, struggling to make both ends' meet and keep his children clothed and fed, had to face a charge of tampering with his gas-meter. In his outline of the case for the City Corporation, counsel .stated that defendant had become m arrears with his gas accounts to the extent of some £8, so a shilling-in-t'he-slot meter was installed. 'Some genius on the corporation staff conceived a brilliant idea of recouping the amount without defendant's knowledge of it. The mechanism of the meter- was aljtered, so that for the expenditure of the shilling a little less than one shilling's worth of gas would be made available. In the course of time the corporation hoped that the deficiency would m this way be wiped off. ' Counsel did not mention; however, that if defendant had ultimately offered to pay off his debt, the town cle^k would have smilingly declined to accept the money m view of the debt unknowingly having been paid. They certainly know their onions m dour Dunedin. •