UP A TREE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 483, 22 July 1890, Page 3

UP A TREE.

THE WORST BUNGLE OF ALL. Of all the miserable blunders of which the South Pacific Petroleum Company has been the perpetrator the last is perhaps the most monstrous The creditors of the Company were annoyed by all kinds of vexatious artifices, such as having their accounts repeatedly returned with various sorts of silly quibbles made concerning them, until at last some of the creditors became so exasperated that they took summary action, had judgment entered up and the machinery submitted under distraint warrant. The auction took place on Saturday, when the property was put up, RECKONED TO HAVE COST OVER £9OO.

It was soon evident that there was to be no competition for the purchase of the machinery and tools. Before the sale commenced it was pretty well certain that the things would go for a mere song—an expression which is generally understood to mean a trifle of the actual value of an article. The few accounta might easily have been met and paid off honestly, although it was a 110 liability company that had to be dealt with, and there would not have been the great loss that must have resulted from such a foolish sacrifice of the property. But it would at any tine have been a new thing for the company alluded to to do business as ordinary practical people would be inclined to du it, and they certainly meant that this last and worst instance of all should be no new departure from the Company’s ordinary method of doing business. No—let the things be sacrificed ! It mattered not —let them go ! And they did go—for a trifle. There were three lota put up, and the proceedings were of the tamest description, with perhaps one characteristic, and that was the mutterings of disgust at the foolishness of those in Sydney who have the management of affairs. After two or three bids, the whole lot were knocked dewn to Messrs Brown and Smaill for SIXTY-FOUR POUNDS, not nearly sufficient to satisfy the distraining creditors, to say nothing of workmen and others who might easily have been paid out of the available assets had there been any attempt to properly manage the thing. Of course no one will cavil at the purchasers getting a good bargain—indeed their business tact is in striking contrast to the exhioition the company has made of itself. We learn that they ought to clear a hundred pounds on their bargain without even handling what they have purchased. This then is the HUMILIATING FINIS to years of weary waiting, hopes buoyantly revived only to be again rudely dissipated by the way in which things have been carried on 1 The obsequies of the company cannot be concluded without having Poverty Bay’s bitterest curse hurled upon it. From the begining to the end of the chapter the thing has been the same, and the humiliating out come is a fitting end to such an extraordinary —and something else—careeer I