FIRE AND MISFORTUNE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 632, 8 April 1929, Page 11

FIRE AND MISFORTUNE

BANKRUPT S HARD LIFE NO CREDITORS AT MEETING (From Our Own Correspondent) HAMILTON, To-day. No creditors were present at the meeting of creditors in the bankrupt estate of Thomas Moses, a labourer, of Frankton. held before the official assignee, Mr. .T. M. Robertson, this morning, bankrupt’s debit totalling £644 11s and hie assets nil. Bankrupt, in his statement, said that in June. 1919, he purchased 100 acres of farm land at Milford, in the South Island, paying .£34 an acre for it. Under the soldeirs’ settlement scheme he received an advance of £2,500 on the land and £SOO for stock and implements. He had to pay high prices for the stock and in the first two years he lost a. number of head. The land was low-lying and bordered on the Milford Lagoon and at very high tides nearly half the farm was inundated and the crops of grass ruined by the salt water, and on two occasions he lost his crops. About this time his wife had to enter a hospital for a serious operation and could do no work, so that he had to employ help with the milking and house work. After seven years lie was forced to relinquish the farm to the Commissioner of Crown Lands.

Bankrupt then came to the North Island to take up share-milking at Piopio. The land was a poor one, and leaving the farm he went to Kiokio, where he was employed at a wage of £7 a week for milking a. herd of 95 cows and doing general farm work. Out of this he had to pay £ 2 15s wages to another man. The farm was sold and he again found himself out of work. A series of misfortunes followed, in which his wife had again to undergo a serious operation and his house was burnt down, entailing a heavy loss. He was then out of work for some time and became more heavily involved in debt. lie was a married man with six children, three of whom were dependent upon him. Bankrupt, according to liis own statement, was the victim of a series of misfortunes, said the assignee. He would await developments before deciding on any further action.