NELSON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2212, 9 March 1869, Page 3

NELSON.

(FEOM OOK.OWN COItIIKSPONDBHT.) ~. February. 28th. A public meeting was held the other week, to-take steps for the formation of a conimitlee On wholn would i rest. tho duty of making preparations for tho reception and entertainment of the Duke of Edin] burgh, on his arrival and during his sta^ in Nelson. There is a general feeling "among '"v^afT^^TOßWfTwOTia'liaW termed the ''inking: people,'' that m the* present state of ,the; province—whicli is decidedly somewhat .hard-np-r-and oi ■ thes colony—w6ich is odmittedljr 4wciaUyiorsKJand ,ia, f besides, mourning over her children no cruolljr filain—it if nps :ady«iiibilo (td.r'exipehd Ymoney on. mere display, or in an attempt.tbipothe triumphant receptipnis!f h»^lhe Duke,isno doubt-tired of -witnessing, ; His Honoto^ the Superintendent, wbb presided ori the; occasion, etatadi that he believed about £600 would suffice for exprnses, and .that :sum has been placed at the disposal of the Reception Committee by the Execu-j tive. The.committee includes his Honour .the-Supermtehdent,~the membera-of-thd Executive, Sir Davidf Monro, the Hon.] Dr Renwick T his YQwhour Judge-Rieh-j mond, Mr Edwards,! M.ELß.. and;.* few otlier citizens. Panama House, has been taken for a residence*^or the- Duke .and the Governor and their respective sriites. A'vote ot £im hm he.£h madeJtoY the comiflittee Of', the Jockey 'Club, to aid them in "providing some,additional facing inducement* to distant owiiera o£ hones, as of course thero.wiU be a srace meeting, whioh-will -be -followed by a ball rand thfetti« alsoJsoraeTbUlt of givingbis R*>sal Highness a day's shooting on the Rabbit i Island.; Expectatioha arte Ihdnlged here ' that the - Galatea; will -hring-the Prince, i whidir I ikouia irappose i* the Hiurty md

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proper thinjr, and that an opportunity for inspecting this fino specimen of England's iron bulwarks will: be allowed—a sight which rail who see it will remember for 'life. '* ... v.-'

In former letters I made mention of oert§in Bankruptcy Court proceedings,and the evil influence of systematic accommodation bills. Subsequent examyi-l at ions' of tho bankrupt in'the special cajie (Satcliffe's) referred to, have brought ouf some very ■a%ly f facts, which show a system of banking complicity with, to put it mildly, extraordinary bill dealings—the exposure of -Jffhich. has .created a great sensation amongst "all business men iri _tHs place. A long series of accomodation bills extending over two yeara was carried I on. H they were not commenced by the "saggestiaii >f, the bstiiker,Yas the bankrupt swori* tbey wero,; the/ were regularly paid, not by the accommodating acceptor/ but by the bankrupt, and as regularly debited to him in the bank passbook;' The men, for the most part, who were giving their names to, these bills, were men whose " paper* no ordinary money dealer would have looked at for a moment. Two cases especially 6sHed foir the Judge's notice : ono was that, of a sawyer, who could neither read nor write, bat who*» <fkitosM fierambulated the .circuit for yeara, going rom the bankrupt to tho bank, and from the bank to the bankrupt again, as they reached maturity. The bankrupt's daughj j ter used to.'sign the name of this sawyer,; who was called Rose, but certainly his name smells not sweetly hero.- Some* times they were ev&ri 'Wgno^d ;Jn blank, in the presence of the acceptor J and with reference to oho bill, this illiterate bill* dealer (whom any banker, with a shadoW of attention, could hive found put in a day's time) deposed in Courtthat he noveij authorised hia namo to be attached to it. Another 'man,* '*• villsge 'butcher,-5 who | "can read a lijtle/inut,"^/cannot read writing," aho did two "bills,; one of which ho behoved was a bill te;Ll3,/which he had borrowed for two^ days, but whicli turned out to be a ,bill Yfoir L6B lis 4d. (Theso jrbilla, By ,the way, were: always made out ,for odd bums.) 'He paid the Ll3 he "had borrowed,'' but the bill was duly /I'melted .*. in.. the bank .crucible; This man, whose namo was Boyes, has a brother, who is a policeman in ihe little village, ahd this policeman fojr y<sara.bad " accommodated * Bdt^li|Tcl ' As with Jthe two Antipholuscs'of Syracuse, the Court was like to get confused in the affiliation of the paper, children "ot these two queer boys. The observations Tot Judge Richmond in theOonrt, rcspectirtgthe position. of the Bank of, New Zealand in the case, I quoto without further comment:—" At last sitting of ,i^e / ipbilrt in this' case I said something respecting the fact of the accommodation bills -being all made out for odd sunls, «nd' that that fact led'to the inference that thoy were so made out in order to deceive tho bank, and onablo them to pass as trade bills, I havo changed my opinion on tbat subject since I had an opportunity of examining the bills and the entries in the bank passbook. I observe tho bank is not here, and 1 Should have supposed, had the bil'o , been passed as trade .mils, the bank would ; havo hid good grounds to complain. But it is pretty clear to me that the manager of the bank must have known for at least twelve months, before, the failure, —I do not go farther back than tliat, although , the pass-book shows the same round of ] names for a long time before then, —for , the last twelve months the banker must , havo known perfectly well the true cha- ; racter of these bills. If he did not know ; that, then I can only say I shall bo.' very much astonished. The bank, however, is : not hero to complain, and whoever elso j may complain as to tho condition of the estate, most certainly the bank ought not to complain, Tho bank, as I have said, '< is not represented, and I am not astonished that it is not represented. Tho . petty deceit of making the bills for odd , shillings and pence; was a device which, as , tho bank book, testifies, could take nobody . in, and in fact it did take nobody in." On Friday last the bankrupt came up for discharge. The Judge, on that occasion, : said lhat the fact of a man who believed ■ he had property to coverall hif debts and something over, obtaining tlie names of friends to bills, them to lend hira money in this fashion, was not necessarily a trading delinquency; but he condemned the manned in which some of the* bills were b' taincd, and particularised those of Boyes and Rose as very wrong—in fact, approaching almost/as near as possible to placing bankrupt within the grasp of tho criminal lawl^. In one of Rose's bills, both ho and his daughter were on the verge of a precipicer-on the verge of a crime against tho law. / ,'- With the. con* duct of tho bank, .which know perfectly »ell that i the bills wore accommodation -billarhe had -in that Court nothing to do : he was not there to' consider whether thq bank wm acting, in, accordance with the principles of banking or not, nor whether rt was acting in -accordance with sound trading practice and commercial morals^ That waa the bank's;own affair, and he was not sitting in judgment on the bank, bat to consider what should be, done with the .application, of the. bankrupt ? and while not disposed to deal, harshly in a caso where a good dividend of abwut 10s iii the pound was paid, yet it was necessary to mark disapproval of the -bankrupt's conduct in regard to" these bills, and there' fore tho discharge would not be granttsd forsix months.. - ■ •-.; ■■•• "■- Thiß is not the last case of very strange; bill arrangements which the present term will witness, and perhaps the commercial air will beptarificd after these storms in bankruptcy. ......'■ w * \ Judgment was given in the Supremo ' Cotairt the other, day on. a question o\ some importance, regarding insolvents as lessees. Before the Magistral's Court at Hokitika, Greer sued Alfred and Daniel Cleve for rent, under a lease dated 2ndj December, 1807. , On 3rd August last,' Alfred Cletfe filed a deed of i assignment .«MdrJhoYAct:of JLBB7, ani-pleaded-iri Court thatthat deedrreleasedbim from all lia' ility after the date of filing; which was denied by Greer, who contended that such filing did not release ,a leasee from the* el&reesed!or cbnditionk'of jhis lease. Tho Resident Magistrate adopted the view of 'the'defertifant,1 Alfred Clove,' and gave judgmen- against him for renl| down to'dstteof deed of .tissigrfmont only/ and against Daniel Oleye (who appearand bo non est, oriiot dirtied gooo for tho amount by the plaintiff), for the sou* claimed. Against this judgment plaintiff appealed, and the Judgo qy^urnod the decision of the Coiirt Tielow, giving jndg-, ment against.^Alfred Cleve for the full :sum,:onthe gronndthat tiionglr dcedaof WratJgem<Snt, July,,,i»se£tc4 U by «$o creditors, and duly executed, bind non- ! assorting l^SVft 1 taken a% puUtifaitea for bankiiip%, yet -it does not follow that the one 'mode I of proeeedii^^.;:^;Y^s^M«|s tb«| i equivalent o£ the other. Tho Judge con- - eluded *att/ela^rate;ju^meiitthisis:-T ! " Jn :«tfMfcgit," the lesporidenVs^OJeve's) ; counsel; placed his chief reliance/iipon 1 the terms of Scc^cjbb 269,* '#&, Jttfc and 1 2SO. It seems tome that none of thesA t seetions'rfye* to the, le?a,anyY^i|onal j effica^wamunat /third*, peraona. =.jThej 1 merely that the i »nd distributor -tftf-jiifcMftWr m i .CO im .TArStt-w' AiTi.tiyiM yy,: j'«:c:;*C .Hi. '

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trusts of the deed shall bo carried on and effected under the superintendence of the Court, iii a manner analogous to the practice in bankruptcy... They do not extend the effect of the deed aa a discharge. The judgment of this Court is, therefore, for the appellant." Clerical unity is sometimes too rare. Here the unanimity of tho different bodies is wonderful, and you find clergymen of all denominations on tho same platform in pnblic ittAttbrs, and even in private and congregational affairs a sensible Catholic chanty is not wan ting; theChoreh assists dissent at its congregational meetings, and dissent concurs with theJChurch in its Christian objects, and they iact tof ether. At a meeting of the Wesleyan fissionary Society here, various clergymen wero present, including the Bishop of Nelson. The Roy. Mr Watkins, of Taranaki, mado an able speech, tracing the history of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission down to the present tune from its formation, just 100 jrasrs ago, when the Rev. J. Wesley asked his brethren in the British Conference the question—' " Who will go to America l n to which tho Revs. Broad man and Pilmor responded and. wont Ho then touchingly referred to the murders at the Whito Cliffs, wherd his late colleague had suffered death by the hands of the Maori. Ho did not bo--lieve that they knew their victim. Hia Lordship the Bishop followed, Mid spoke of tho advantage of. united labour of all sects ih'this'groat edterprisi, and referred totho'Pbljrnwian Mission, and to the; "work it/Was acwmplishing. : / Poor Cascoigne, who was murdered at White Cliffs, has relatives in this neighbourhood, and I Observe that photographs of tho late Mr Whiteley, Lieutenant Gasi coigno, and Mrs Gascoigno and family, taken some time since by Mr F.Jones, and now belonging to Mr 0. Gill, photographer, are exhibiied/iri the idwni ■ l f ;jA Very sad accident, which occurred tori Thursday, illustrates the occasional callopsness of young chtldron. A boy named Bradshaw, about «x or seven years old* was playing .witli another, i aged • about eight, named Bremner, on the river banks near Collingwood Bridge.' The"iiver was in flood by heavy.rains, and: Bradshaw fell in and was drowned. His companion went home,'! had'tea; and' w«ht to bed witliout saying a word. Tlie parents of the-lost boy ©Esquired about him, and Bremner was awakened and questioned if he knew tohere thai boy was. " Yes," waa the reply, "he's drowried—ho fell into the river,".; The body of the child waa found .in a deep .place where he fell, his littlo hands grasping some flax ho had incffcotuMly seized- Verdict, accidental death. -' a- ■ - -. -■ > Thero was on Friday some capital steoplo chasing at Upper Wakefield, about eighteen or twenty miles up the country. Large crowds; wero attracted, and the Waimea Jockoy Club deserve credit for tho spirited mannor in which they arranged and carried out their programme. Somo very creditable pictures of native flowers have been sent to tho;Otago Exhibition, f.y the daughters of Mr Harris, artist, Nile street. Thoy h&va been very highly spoken of by tho Press hero.