HOW CREDIT WORKS.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 524, 25 May 1880, Page 3

HOW CREDIT WORKS.

A storekeeping firm in Otago have treated their customers to the following circular ;—“ We beg to intimate that we arc under the necessity of placing the business carried on in our Gore store on a ready-money footing. We find ourselves quite unable to cope with the situation in any other way ; we opened with a belief in our ability to manage a general store and give reasonable accommodation in the way of credit, without making any losses of consequence. Our belief in our own smartness has been very much shaken. We have been victimised to the extent of several closely-written pages of names; and for sums we do not care to mention. Wo can only account for the growing spirit of dishonesty, by its being cultivated in Legislation ; but, however produced, we have to protect ourselves from its effects as best we can. Honest men there are as well as rogues, but our attempt at classifying them has proved a disastrous failure. In anotiicr and a better world it may be done to some purpose, but hero it is a perplexing task, when we find someonehas imposed on us with an ingeniously innocent appearance,and a plausible story, and (for a crime which is really stealing) deserves to be exhibited with the broadarrow on his coat and the legs of his trousers, the laws of this free and happy country shield him from harm, in a way that commands the admiration of anyone who thinks it part of the duty of a State to foster a spirit of rascality among its citizens.”