MEETING OF CREDITORS.

Evening Star, Issue 13123, 2 December 1908, Page 6

MEETING OF CREDITORS.

A meeting of the creditors of David Ruthven Grant, of St. Bathans, hotelkeeper, was held in the Official Assignee’s office this morning, five creditors being present. Mr D. Cooke represented three other creditors, and Mr W. L. Moore appeared on behalf of the debtor. The bankrupt's scheduled statement showed:—Unsecured creditors, £216 10s; secured creditors, £553 15s lOd (estimated value of securities £550); total debts, £220 3s lOd ; book debts, £l3O 5s 4d, assigned to Neil Nicolson, St. Bathans. The principal unsecured creditors are as follow Beattie, St. Bathans, £2B; F. Bennett and Co., Dunedin, £3O; Macassey and Co., Dunedin, £23 10s; M'Gavin and Co., Dunedin, £25; W. M’Connochie, St. Bathans, £18; W. Pyle, St. Bathans, £ls; Mollisons, Ltd., Dunedin, £11; Macdougall and Co., Dunedin. £l3; Brown, Ewing, and Co., Dunedin, £9; Mackerras and Hazlett, Dunedin, £9 12s; Lane and Co., Dunedin, £9 ; H. V. King, Dunedin, £7; Speight an! Co., Dunedin, £22. The secur*! creditors are:—John Reid, William Reid, Euphemia Hartley, debt £316 10s, security £450 (first morV gage of North-east Valley property); Henry Eldridge, debt £137 3s, lOd, security £135 10s (second mortgage of Northeast Valley property); Neil Nicolson, debt £IOO, holding assignment of book debts, estimated to produce £IOO. The properly consists of allotment 15, Township of Sclwyn, North-east Valley, area 8.1 poles. The bankrupt put in a statement explaining his circumstances since 1901, when he held a lease of 10 acres and a house. That was insufficient to keep him, and he took to laboring in 1905. Then he turned to farming, and took up another 50 acres. He held it for a year, and then exchanged it for a lease-in-perpetuity property, for which he paid £SOO over and above the property he exchanged. To raise the money he applied for a mortgage from Messrs Stionach, Morris, and Co. In 1907 he sold out, and received about £IBO in cash, but of that he paid a deposit of £4O on some property in Northeast Valley, and repaid some £25 to his brother, and maintained himself and family for about three months. He incurred much expense on account of the ill-health of his wife. On September 25, 1907, he purchased the Ballarat Hotel in St. Bathans, for which he paid a deposit of £9O, .and was financed by Simpson and Hart, and Macassey. They took a mortgage over everything In April, 1908, Messrs Speight and Co. took over the mortgages. When he received summonses from two of his creditors in August he wrote and asked Speight and Co. to take over the hotel or sell, as he found that he could not make a success of it. On August 28 they entered into possession, and he left with twopence to his credit. The hotel was werth nothing when he took it, and he improved the business while there. As a consequence, he estimated that he should have got £4OO when he left the hotel. L p to now he had not received a statement of what the hotel brought. He attributed his bankruptcy to the fact that he was misled as to the takings of the hotel " hen he took it over, to a very severe winter' in Central Otago, when business was practically at a standstill, and the owner declining to keep the hotel in decent repair, and to giving too much credit. He has a wife and three children. The children are aged seven, five, and two. He is working on Mr J. Steele’s farm at Middlemarch, ami has no immediate prospects.of paying his debts. He would not have filed unless his Dunedin creditors had compelled him to do so.

Banrupt, in reply to questions, said he kept no record of Hs transactions before going into the hotel at St. Bathans. Ee did not remember saying at a meeting of his creditors at Speight and Co.’s that he iha«! paid money to his brother in connection with a property at Middlemarch after ho went into the hotel. The purchasemcrey for the hotel was £315, of which !>•' paid £SO on deposit. Simpson and Hart and Lane and Co. gave him £l5O, and Macassey and Cc., £75. He had left his bank book at St. Bathans by mistake, but would undertake to forward it to the Official Assignee. He gave security to Simpson and Hart and the others over the lease and furniture, had paid Simpson and Hart for liquor supplied, but nothing on of the security. He had paid £45 10s off Macassey’s account. He had paid Lane nothing on his mortgage. Tho cash takings in the hotel from September 25 to December 51, 1907, totalled £149 19s 6d, and from the beginning of this year to August 27 the takings totalled £342 14s sd. These amounts did not include book debts collected while he was in the hotel. Thomas Lester had sued him for • about £25, and he had not included.Lester in'his list of creditors. He had paid but £686 approximately from the date of taking over the hotel until he. left it. He owed mcrey to the St. Bathans Racing Club. He had received £7 on behalf of the club, and had not paid it over yet. His St. Bathans creditors had never pressed him. The Dunedin creditors did press him for payment. The examination of the bankrupt was I proceeding when we went to press.