A CHINESE BANKRUPT

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 118, 21 May 1928, Page 11

A CHINESE BANKRUPT

DISCHARGE PROBABLE Unusual, features characterised a meeting of creditors in tho bankrupt estate of Young Man, a Chinese market gardener of Ohau, over 60 years of age, held before the Official Assignee CMr S, Tansley) to-day. Unsecured creditors . totalled . £237 16s 2d, the largest ' creditors' being Messrs. Parker and1 Vincent and Co Ltd., £46 11s 7d,' Market Gardeners Co., Ltd., £30 0s 2d, D. Bowio and Co. £35 10s 3d, and."Wah On and Co. £52 3s 9d. Assets, consisting of stock-in-trade at Ohau, were £20. \ A statement prepared by his solicitor stated that for three j'ears prior to May, 1926, Young Man had-.carried on .business as a market gardeiier at Otaki. In the last of .these years ; he had a bad. season, which ate up his capital, so that he was loft with nothing but his tools and implements, and owing- a small account to Wah On and' Co. Messrs. D. Bowio and Co; and George Thomas and Co., fruit auctioneers " at"'Wellington,' each advanced him £50 to take' up a i garden of five acres at Ohau, at an annual rental of £12 10s per acre. The first crop of potatoes was not good, and moth destroyed the cabbages and cauliflowers. During- that year, however, he had repaid Thomas and Co.The • next year countrymen advanced him small sums, and Market' Gardeners, Ltd., gave. him credit for seed. This | year also the. potato crop failed, leaving him in such debt that he could only file his petition. He could not read or write either Chinese or.English. His business was conducted wholly through fruit merchants. Garden expenses.had been a minimum, and he had done most of the work himself. He was at present working for relatives for his keep. The books consisted of a few papers ■ presented. Young' Man, who spoke through a Chinese with whom he had been living recently, was questioned by creditors,, but could make no offer. Mr. J. MaeDijff,. his solicitor, said the position was that as a matter of fact Young Man was too old, though willing enough, to do the work. Ho was over sixty, and his relatives and friends wished to send him back to China, where he could be kept by relatives more economically than here. Mr. Tansley: "His name did not carry him through1?" i Mr; Mac Duff: "No." It was the' practice, he said, for the remains of all Chinese to bo sent back to China for burial, and the health of Young, Man was such that' the relatives would be merely anticipating this course of action. The young Chinaman with whom the bankrupt had been living said that ho had fainted several times during the past week. A discussion took place regarding the necessity for payment of the debts before Young Man could'receive '. his' discharge; Asked whether it was not a practice for relatives or children to undertake the discharge of Chinamen's debts, in the case of death, the Chinese present seemed not to have heard of such a practice. Young Man was a bachelor. A creditor said that the practice of assisting Chinese market gardeners, carried on fairly extensively by fruit merchants, was not, an his opinion, conducted on sufficiently business-like lines. The meeting was adjourned sine die, creditors present raising no objection to the Assignee's suggestion that the discharge might as well be granted.