TWENTY-ONE YEARS' BANKRUPTCIES.

Otago Witness, Volume 14, Issue 2648, 14 December 1904, Page 59

TWENTY-ONE YEARS' BANKRUPTCIES.

The Official Assignee for Wellington (Mr Ashcroft) attained his "official majority" on Thursday last, having been appointed on December 1, 1833. He spent nine years and a-haif in Dunedin. and has been eleven and a-half in Wellington. He has placed at our disposal the following inter esting statistics: — Assets. Petitions. Realised £ Seven years, 1881-1890 .. 6,212 584,616 Seven years. 1891-1897 .. 3.547 506,556 Seven yeais, 15980904 .. 1,923 266,084 Totals 11,637 1,657,256 The yearly averages of petitions are:—' For first period. 887; for second period, 507; and fo.- third period, 275; showing very large reductions as the colony increased in "prosperity. Only the present year is estimated, all the rest are actual figures. They 'are for the whole colony. Mr Ashcroit has had the general control of between, one-third and one-fourth of these bankruptcies : in other words, something like 3300 bankrupts have passed under his fatherly rare. It is true the Official. Assignee does not directly administer estates in the hands of deputies (of whom there are 10 in this district), but he exercises a general control and supervision, and intervenes whore there arc complications. Since 1902 he has also wound up a considerable number of estates under deeds of assignment and several companies. He has also sat as coroner in about 850 cases, and has thus «e&n in his dual capacities a vast deal of the shady side of human life. — New Zealand Times.