SHARP PRACTICE.

Observer, Volume IV, Issue 84, 22 April 1882, Page 83

SHARP PRACTICE.

Captain Stevenson, of Tauranga (says a San Francisco correspondent), goes home with an awful opinion of the Colony in general and the Bay of Plenty in particular. He says certain strictures passed on "Tauranga society by Mr Esdmle in the Observed some months ago (although contradicted) were quite correct and mentions instances of social lapses calculated, to make our hair stand, erect. The gallant Captain found himself in a nice little fix on the day of sailing. Two years ago he bought a piano from' a well known tradesman in Auckland and paid for ifc. Mrs B. sings, so at the same time he asked leave to take some songs home to try promising to return those >yhich. didn't suit. None of them answered and the Jotall went back, so you may imagine Captan S.s an- ~~ novance when three months later he was billed ' for the whole lot;., Naturally he wrote a strong" letter to the shopman and declined to admit the debt. Nothing more transpired till the morning the s.s. Zealandia was to sail, when the Captain was served with a writ and a ne exeat, the "whole , amounting to over £5. To contest such a claim under the circumstances was of course impossible, so, as the tradesman no doubt calculated he would, he paid up. One can however,, scarcely wonder at visitors using strong language about .Auckland tradespeople when swindles of this descriptioncan be deliberately perpetrated. I may add by the way, that I have known a collector call more than fifty times on this same tradesman for a . small debt under £A. . : :