BANKRUPT MARKET GARDENER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 172, 22 June 1926, Page 2

BANKRUPT MARKET GARDENER.

TRACTS RETURNED FOR DEBTS. AN UNSATISFACTORY POSITION. An investigation into the affairs of Ernest Claves Hadfield, market gardener, of Cambridge, bankrupt, at Hamilton last week did not reveal a very satisfactory state of affairs. Bankrupt, it seems, was bankrupt in Auckland twenty years ago, and was undischarged. He had, lie said, never applied for his discharge, as lie had always intended to pay his debts in full. He stated that lie was a Seventh Day Adventist, and that a health food factory had been purchased in his wife’s name with money advanced bv relatives and a personal friend. This factory had yielded only a few shillings a week, and had to bo closed down owing to inability to get ooke. Theoretically, lie said, he was insolvent when he started business in Cambridge. In three years, however, 110 reduced his indebtedness from £4OO to £2BO. . , Certain creditors declared that all tho satisfaction they- could get from defendant when they asked for their money was to be sent a bundle of tracts. One of these gave the Biblical quotation "What doth it profit a man,” etc. Bankrupt said that some of the debts concerned were from his bankruptcy of twenty years ago. * One creditor who was given a promissory note of £25 said that the money was used by bankrupt to purchase an electric motor which went on to bankrupt’s wife’s property. He was not told of this at the time. Bankrupt said it did not occur to him to inform the creditor of this. Ho later gave another creditor a bill of sale over the motor to cover a debt of £SO. The meeting was adjourned to enable a further investjjgatipi;