ALLEGED FRAUDULENT BANKRUPTCY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1033, 21 November 1882, Page 3

ALLEGED FRAUDULENT BANKRUPTCY.

At the District Court, Tiraaru, on Friday last, (’re learn from a Titnaru paper) William Halstead, of Pleasant Point, a debtor, applied for an order of discharge. Mr Jameson appeared for the debtor, and Mr White appeared for the principal creditors, Messrs Wildie, Allan and Stumbles, to oppose the application, and called and examined the debtor as to some of his transactions. The evidence showed that the debtor bad made a verbal agreement with the opposing creditors, under which they were to advance money to him wherewith to purchase wool, to be resold by them, the debtor receiving the profit after deducting 10 per cent interest on the advances, per cent commission on sales effected, and other ordinary charges. The firm sent him 181 bales of wool to be scoured, and advanced him him £2OO, partly or wholly to pay the expenses of the work. The 181 bales were reduced to 119 by process of scouring, and of these he delivered to them 71. The balance he refused to deliver, stating as his reason that he could not get a statement of the account between himself and the firm. He sent the 47 bales to Messrs Miles, Archer and Co. to be shipped Home on his account, but that firm, learning there was some dispute about them, declined to ship, and he then shipped them through theN.Z.L. and M.A. Company, drawing against them, within a few weeks of bis filing, some £530. He told Messrs Wildie, Allan and Stumbles that he would not give up the wool to them until the account between them had been gone through by Mr Granger, but admitted that Mr Granger, after going through tho accounts, told him he was considerably indebted to the firm, (Mr White stated about £1700.) Of the advances on 47 bales of wool £l2l was received only the day before he filed, but he could not clearly state how lie had disposed of this. About half of it he had paid away in settlement of tradesmen’s accounts. In his four-day list he had failed to put down among his assets 70 acres of land, which had been mortgaged to Messrs Miles, Archer and Co. for £BOO, but of which lie had paid off £SOO. The only reason that he gave for this omission was that the mortgagees still had a lien upon it. He put down Miles, Archer and Co. as secured creditors for £834, though he knew he did not owe them so much. He did not know exactly how much he owed them. He did not put down the land as an asset because, though he had paid off

so much, he thought it was mortgaged up to its full valet*. He knew that the trustees aftsrwards su'd the land for about £IOOO. In reply to questions he mentioned che land at the fiist meeting of creditors. Certain alleged sales of stock to his son were then inquired into, and five receipts, puiporting to have been given at different dates —in 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1881—were produced by Mr White, who drew his Honor’s attention to the fact that three of these, with an interval of six years between the extreme dates, were on the same kind of paper, and that two of them, purporting to have been given in 1876 and 1878 respectively, were written on half sheets of paper, th© torn edges of which fitted each other exactly. His Honor said there was no doubt they were on corresponding halfsheets. The other two receipts, purporting to have been signed in 1877 and 1881 respectively, were written on two pieces bf paper torn out of a copy-book, and the edges were torn in such a way as to show clearly that they had been torn out togather. One of these was dated October sth, 1881, but the date had evidently been altered from 1882 to 1881, and the stamp used was one of the new revenue stamps first issued at the beginning of the present year. Yet the witness said he believed the receipt was given in October, 1881. Mr White remarked that it was a not uncommon mistake to write the date of a past tear, requiring its alteration, but it was most unlikely that any one would write the date of a year in advance. One of the receipts was for £l3l, part cash and part ‘ contra account, but there was no trace of the cash in the debtor’s books, and he could not tell what he had done with it. nor could he say how much was cash. The wording had also been altered, part of the original form ‘ and work done’ being covered by the stamp. The debtor said that he probably used the cash, as he was in want of money at the time, but a certified copy of his banking account at the date on the receipt showed that lie was in funds, and also had paid several sums to his son during that month. On being asked what books he kept, and why he had not given them up to th* trustees, he said he kept a day book, a 1 edger, and a wool book. The trustee had had the books, and he had no reason for withholding them, but there was nothing much in them.,

At the conclusion of Mr White’s examination, Mr Jameson said the state of things disclosed was entirely new to him. He had certainly seen the receipts when they were before the trustees, but he had not made such a critical examination of them as Mr White had. He had no idea such evidence could be obtained from them. His best course, he thought, would be to say nothing in the meantime. Mr White then asked, not only that the order of discharge should be refused, or suspended for the longest possible term, but that his Honor would direct a prosecution for fraudulent bankruptcy. It was one of the worst cases that had ever been before the Court. The four-day list*disclosed perjury, the manufactured receipts pointed to conspiracy between father and son, and there had been flagrant failure to disclose the whole of his teal and personal property. He asked for an order to prosecute, so that any costs incurred might be paid out of the estate, the order to be based on subsections 1,2, 3,4, 6, 10, 11, and 15 of clause 4, and subsection 2 of clause 6 of the Debtors and Creditors Act.

His Honor granted the order to prosecute, the application for discharge to be adjourned until the prosecution was disposed of, and ordered the documents connected with the case to bo delivered to Mr White as counsel for the trustees.