£30,000 IN FIVE YEARS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17902, 6 April 1920, Page 6

£30,000 IN FIVE YEARS

MISS BRADY'S BANKRUPTCY. Misa Mary Brady, the. Manchester girl who is serving a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment fox defrauding her employers of large sums of money, was examined in tho Bankruptcy Court at Manchester recently on a statement of affairs disclosing gross liabilities of £13,000, of which £11,000 was due to unsecured creditors, and assets amounting to £7000. Her career of extravagance began in 1915 and continued until her arrest a few months ago. Her father was in the Royal Irish Constabularly, and, according to Miss Brady's evidence to-day, was comfortably' off, although not wealthy. In her early career in Manchester she was a typist and clerk at a music hall. She entered the office of a shipping firm five years ago, and eventually became bookkeeper to the firm at a* salary of £4 a week. . Miss Brady herself was responsible for a story that in 1911, when she became of age, she inherited the income from £5000 under her grandmother's will and that she received the capital sum in 1915. In that way she had explained her .ability to live at the Midland Hotel. Miss Brady's original explanation of the circumstances in which she became bankrupt was that from the time she went to the Midland Hotel sho began to live extravagantly, spending a large amount of money on dress, jewellery, and entertainments, and, in 12 months' time, had practically exhausted the £5000. She could not' bring herself to stop her extravagances, and in order to meet her expenditure she took money from her employers. She admitted to-day that the grandmother's legacy was an invention. Her grandmother had left her estate to her son and two daughters, but as she was the eldest granddaughter sho had been led to expect that £5000 would come to her. There was a family arrangement that she should receive the proceeds of some shares when she was 21. or later. She had received, from her brother-in-law, who was an Italian, the total sum of £5000 to enable her to start in business. He was not a creditor. The Official Receiver stated that the debtor's employers put hfit defalcations .it £?.3,00C0. She,, now herself had_ stated them to be £10.000. and he asked if she now disputed the larger figure. She replied that _ she could not say. The figures looked different set out on a paner than thev did in the books. In reply to other questions, Miss Brady said that she started in birsiness. and calculated that she lost between £2000 and £"(VX) in six months. The Official Receiver: I suggest it was moro than £10,000. ! The Debtor: It could not possibly be so mueh. She added that sho hnd borrowed I separate sums of £1000 each from a money. I lender, but had repaid with interest more

than sho received. In three years she hod spent £5000 altogether, but in 1916 and 1917 sue got through £7000. The Official Receiver: You have had something like £30,000 in the last five years?— Yes. Regarding the debtor's losses at cards, sho was asked if the total losses were not more than between £2000 and £3000. The Debtor: That is as high as I can possibly place it. She added that she had always lost at cards, but she had won £145 at the races. The Official Receiver: Do you think you were made a victim at cards? Absolutely no. The card parties were always absolutely straight and aboveboard. , The examination was closed.

— A collection of essays by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alexander de Maltos, has been published by Methuen. The .author, in dealing with some problems raised by the war, indicates that, if this world has been disturbed, not less so must have been that region which we call the Kingdom of the Shades. Never since the beginning of the world has that kingdom been so invaded by the young dead. Hitherto it has received mostly .weary and exhausted lives. The author's faith is that not one of that incomparable host has gone down to his death; he has gone up to hia death clad in the greatest sacrifice that man can make for an idea that cannot die. In "Messages from Beyond the Grave" the author considers Sir Oliver Lodge does not bring us irrefutable proof, but he admits such proof is as difficult to conceive as to provide. Such experiments as "Raymond" do not demonstrate positively that the dead are able to remain in • touch with us, but they prove that the dead continue to live in us more personally and passionately than had hitherto been believed. One of the longest papers, "The Insect World," is based on Fabre, the famous' entomologist. It is a delightfully informing treatise on certain forms of insect life. Expressing his opinion on "Evil Speaking," the author says: "If you. do away with evil speaking you do away with three-fourths of ox'r conversation, and an unbearable silence will hover over every gathering." In an analysis of "Gambling," he traces the gambler's strange gropings after laws in what would seem a negation of all law, and the readiness with which people see laws where there is only a mass of coincidences. Chance is defined as an aggregate of effect whereof we do not know the causes. Biology and heredity are employed as themes. Heredity is accepted as an experimental truth; preexistence is a logical necessity. The doctrine of successive lives and of the expiatory and purifying reincarnation is the noblest and, up to now, the only acceptable explanation that has been discovered of Nature's injustices. Several chapters are devoted to aspects of Eastern religions. The entire volume is extremely interesting; each topic receives thoughtful treatment, and all are expressed in that charming literary form with which •Maeterlinck's previous writinjj have made his readers familiar.