PEOPLE WHO PAY DEBTS THEY DON'T OWE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 55

PEOPLE WHO PAY DEBTS THEY DON'T OWE.

One species of madness which is very agreeable to the Chancelloi of the Exchequer, as well as to most banks and large business houses, is the curious delusion some people labour under that they owe debts which they really do not. Nearly every day tho newspapers contain acknowledgments of tlur receipt of conscience-money. Generally this is a payment of income tax which .someone shirked, or thought he shirked, when it fell due. Now, the people who are so ultra honest as to pay income tax that has not been demanded are very rare indeed, wa that most of these payments are made by men mentally deranged.

In my practice as a medical man, I often come face to face with these cranks, Mid very curious it is to watch the working of their minds. Some time ago a lady asked my advice about- her husband, who was' squandering his money at such a rate that she saw nothing before them but the poorhouse. The strangest thing about the case was that this gentleman had been all his life a hard-headed, close-fisted business man, and the last person in the world who would give . ■something for nothing. When I called to see him he was sitting at a table which was strewn with' at least a dozen cheques for large amounts. One was for £500 to the income tax commissioners. You see," he said, "my income never fell below five thousand pounds, while I paid only on one thousand." || Are you sure?" I inquired. "Oh, yes," he replied; "here -are the books. % I went over the books with him, and found that his average income was under eleven hundred pounds. He at once realised the mistake he had made, and said he would alter the amount of the cheque. But the next morning he was again tinder tno delusion that his income was really live thousand, and no- persuasion could prevent him from sending the £500. Another queer case that came under my notice was that of a rich widow of extreme conscientiousness who had lost -hejr memory. Now and again, on looking at; an article of dress, or jewellery, or furniture, she would think that she had never paid for it. One day, while I was talking with her, she looked at the piano and suddenly exclaimed: . "Dear me, I have never paid for that piano, and unless I do it at once I shall forget it. Then, going to her desk, she wrote a cheque and asked me to post it. The strange part of this case was that as the people to whom she sent payments for accounts she did not owe were honest enougl? to return the money, the lady after a time began to send the money anonymously. Some people keep an account Separately from their bank-book of sums paid in and withdrawn. Sometimes they lodge fifty or a hundred pounds and neglect to enter it m their private book: Of course, at the end of the year the. bank-book shows them to be one hundred pounds richer than they think. Then this peculiar kind of madness begins to operate. They jump to the conclusion that the bank has wronged itself, and, being too sensitively conscientious to get a clerk into trouble by making inquiry, they worry themselves over the matter until nothing remains to be done but send the money anonymously to the bank. But the queerest case I have come ;icroxs was that of a jolly old gentlemnn mLo had consumed a .gross, or more bottle* of whisky every year for half a century. He got the notion into his head that distillers were in the habit of paying less duty than they ought,, and thus wronging the Government. Himself, however, he believed to be an accessory to the fraud, and as the amount, as he worked it out, was pretty large, he grew quite nervous about what awaited him in the next world. With the object of paying this imaginary debt, he cut down the household expenses to starvation point, and I was called in to treat him. But the case was perfectly hopeless, and to the day of his death he continued sending postal orders to the excise authorities.