SIXTY YEARS AGO. FROM THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam aut faciam." MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1864.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19275, 12 September 1924, Page 8

SIXTY YEARS AGO. FROM THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam aut faciam." MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1864.

On the departure of Melbourne or Northern steamers, Port Chalmers has lately been more than once enlivened by the peculiarities of interviews between absconding debtors and unrelenting creditors, bailiffs, and police; but the departure of the Albion last week was the occasion of the most amusing attempted flight and successful capture that had occurred for some time. A gentleman whose inability to pay his lawful debts is pretty well known was ascertained to be skulking about the Port for some days, and some of his creditors, shrewdly suspecting his intention, baulked them so far that he found it impossible to get on board the Albion without an extreme risk of capture at the hands of detectives and bailiffs specially retained on his account. He therefore quitted the immediate scene of danger, and, early in the day of the vessel’s departure, betook himself to the sandspit near the Heads in the hope of getting on board the steamer before she reached the open sea. In the dreary solitude of this locality he spent the day, solaced only by the strong probability of his preparations for departure being more successful than the schemes of his common enemies, who would naturally devote their attention to examination of the ship on her leaving the anchorage. But he calculated without his host. Some of the more suspicious of his creditors took passage as far as the Heads on board the Albion, and behind her towed a boat laden with minions of the law. The steamer stopped her way inside the Heads for a few minutes to land a person proceeding to the Pilot Station, and at the same moment a boat came cautiously off from the shore of the Sandspit, rowed by two men and steered by the would-be fugitive. The approach of the boat was cautiously made for the circumstance of boats being astern of the steamer was a suspicious one. As one of the boats, however, was seen to be that of a fisherman, and the other became concealed by proceeding to the starboard side of the vessel, the two rowers pulled more vigorously towards her, and another stroke or two would have put her alongvßpfuvo this could be done, the boat on the starboard side re-appeared. If was i,.c s boat. As soon as the true character of the occupants was observed, the boatmen from the shore relaxed their efforts, renewed them speedily in the opposite direction, and, -with the dumfounded debtor,- made for the shore with all their might, the bailiff’s boat in close pursuit. As soon as the boat grounded on the spit, out jumped the debtor into the shallow water, and soon gaining the dry ground he set off at full speed for the only cover that was accessible,, bush about a mile away. Soon the bailiff’s boat also got aground, and out into the water, helter-skelter, went creditors, bailiffs, and boatmen making the best of their speed after the fugitive. . .

At length the hue and cry gained vigour; the unfortunate debtor, fairly run out of breath, stumbled, fell, ahd rolled over helplessly among the sand; and, with a few more bounds and a shout of victory, his pursuers were alongside and on the top of him. With the whole group as his convoy, he returned as a conquered hero to the boat, and, being accommodated with a free passage to the Port, arrived there late in the evening, preliminary to being provided, at the expense of his captors, with quarters and rations in Dunedin Gaol.