ALL ABOUT A BET.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 16 September 1926, Page 9

ALL ABOUT A BET.

JUDGMENT SUMMONS CASE

Judgment summonses usually resolve themselves into a case of counsel for creditor using a good deal of the court’s time on behalf of his client, trying to prove that judgment debtor has ,had money in this possession which he,should have given t-q his creditors'. If counsel for plaintiff creditor succeeds, the principal man”'" in the box probably goes to gaol. A case of more than usual latent sporting colour was heard -in the Hawe-ra Court yesterday.

Fhe original process was stated 1 by counsel for debtor to- have originated in a bet. It- appears that judgmentcreditor, ! six years ago, was a man on the land and worth up to £20,000. The lawyer who appeared on his behalf in court had considered his position sufficiently sound to advance £3O0 —and lawyers don’t “chuck it about.” Defendant, however, got into a tail spin, and in a brief space was in the midst of a host of creditors. He was “bluepaoered” on every, hand- Amongst the judgment he let go- by default before the magistrate was one- based on a dishonoured cheque given as a result of a. gaming transaction. The debtor might have withstood this claim by pleading that-the cheque was given .as a result qf a betting* transaction; but he did aiot and, iudgment having been entered, the court c-ould not yesterday go behind that when proceedings were brought under judgment summons.

Judgment debtor had in the days of affluence been a. sporting main with brood mares and high -service fees to nay. He was a racing main who had bets, and no light ones either. All that was changed now. But still yesterday’s proceedings arose from one of those bets'.' The foundation of the action was that bet which judgment creditor had tried to pay by splitting firewood on his farm. The facts did 1 not come out in the. evidence, but there seemed little dispute that such was the case.

In the course of th© proceedings,' which did not result in -an order of imprisonment, the magistrate remarked with irony, “A man is a sport who will take qut a bet from a man who is hard up.”