YOUNG WOMAN'S DEBTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21938, 23 October 1934, Page 11

YOUNG WOMAN'S DEBTS

DUNEDIN FIRM'S SUIT COUFIIT REFUSES ORDER ABILITY TO PAY UNPROVED Unusually protracted judgment summons proceedings were brought to a close in the Magistrate's Court in Duncdin, when Mr. J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., refused to make any order with respect to the claim preferred by a drapery firm against Edna Xevill for £'6 7s Cd for goods supplied. The magistrate said it was very reprehensible that accounts should be run up in the! manner shown by the evidence in the case before him, but he was of the opinion that some of the responsibility had to be shouldered by the firms concerned. They were in some measure to blame inasmuch as there was a tendency to be too free with credit. What he had to determine, however, was the question of ability to pay, and he found that since the date on which judgment was given for the plaintiff, the defendant had not had the meant! to pay. Mr. G. T. Bavlee, counsel for plaintiffs, cross-examined defendant concerning her means and recent expenditure. The defendant, whose attitude in the witness box during the previous part hearing of the case provoked a warning from the Bench that she was in danger of being charged with contempt of Court, apologised to the magistrate. Asked oy Mr. Bavlee how. much money she had spent on clothes in the last 12 months, the defendant said she had very little idea, but it might have been £2O or £3O. She had spent a month in Christchurch in January, when she was ill for 11 days. While in Christchurch she had stayed at the Clarendon Hotel with her sister, her mother paying the hotel bill. Small-Cigarettes Bill Defendant said she did not belong to a golf club as she could not afford it, but she had played golf, and admitted buying golf balls for which her father paid. Her father had also paid Jialf the account of the Otago Hospital Board, but she was not aware of any other accounts he had paid. She thought she owed about £IOO. Mr. Baylee questioned the defendant about smoking and drinking, latter of which witness denied She thought she spent from 6d to 1» 6d a week on cigarettes, and when tounsel suggested that even that amount might have been devoted to reducing the account, she made no reply. Witness said she lived at home with her mother, who kept her for nothing, but did not provide her with what counsel termed "incidentals," To her counsel, Mr. C. M. Barnett, defendant said she spent 6s 6d on pills and 4s 6d on toqic out of her allowance of £1 a week. In answer to the magistrate, she said she had been doing that for three months. Defendant's Mother in the Box Mr. Baylee suggested that the defendant derived some income from her mother and asked that she should be called. Mrs. Xevill said she received £ls 3s 4d a month to keep herself, three children and a maid. She guaranteed an aecofint of £29 10s for a fur coat for her daughter and paid her hotel bills in Christchurch. but she made her no allowance whatever. She could not afford to pay her daughter's bills. Her daughter had been in a very serious state of health and had suffered a great deal. Mr. Baylee submitted that with the defendant living rent and board free at home, he was entitled to an order of some sort. The magistrate, in refusing an order, said he had not been shown that after providing the necessities of maintenance the defendant was able to pay.