The Poverty Bay Hearald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Saturday November 22, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 957, 22 November 1879, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Hearald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Saturday November 22, 1879.

In the day of our triumphs ; m the hour of our affliction, and m all times of our trouble we have always taken our readers into our confidence. We have opened our heart to them and disclosed its innermost secrets. We do so at this moment. The Standard has had to lower its colors, shall the Herald then from similar causes cease to blow its trumpet? We hear our readers exclaim " Forbid it, Heaven !" Well, then we ask, why do customersrefuse to square their accounts with us. People will advertise and won't pay their accounts ; will read our papers but won't pay their subscriptions ; and we can't stand it any longei*. Our collector, no mean hand at his business, has had recourse to every device to keep us m funds, but he tells us he has nearly failed. People are either devoid of sympathy or money. The collector's opinion is that there is an absence of both. He went round among the customers yesterday, and he trusts he may be forgiven the fibs he uttered ; but m his extremity he told a number of people that we had got a bailiff m our printing shop. To use his own expression, he thought that tale of sorrow would "fetch 'em." But it didn't. One man said he had just succeeded m getting a bailiff out of his premises ; another hourly expected a bailiff to be put m. A third said that his case would have been as bad as our own, but that Mr. Gruner, of the R.M. Court had used up all his deputies and hadn't another on hand. Hear what was said by a callous wretch, who is indebted to us m the amount of thirteen, seven, four : " You've got a bailiff m, have you ? Poor devil ! Where are you going to sleep him, and who is bound to provide him with tucker ?" That was all the sympathy this miserable man showed for our dilapidated condition, j After several efforts of a desperate kind we succeeded m obtaining an interview with our bank manager. When a bank manager asks a customer to see him, there is no difficulty whatever m getting the

interview, but if a man wants to see a bank manager there is the greatest trouble m life to accomplish the object. We say, then, that after most desperate and unremitting efforts we got our bank manager into a corner of his parlor. The most noteworthy featxxre of a manager is his imperturbability and excess of coolness. "We spoke to him with respect to a balance at our credit. His reply was that he supposed we alluded to the balance at our debit. We told hira that we were a good deal ignorant of how bankers kept their books. But this was not a time that we could allow ourselves to be amused by a mere play upon words. Debit or credit it was the same with j us. " Where ignorance was bless it j were folly to be wise." The short of it was — would he honor our cheque, j He replied he would with the greatest of pleasure if we placed ourselves m funds. We made answer and said we were not quite so ignorant of things as not to know that any bank manager would do that. There was no merit coming out of such a statement. Honor our cheque, we said imploringly ; — what difference would it make to him. It would be all the same to the bank a hundred years hence. This, we thought appeared to be rather a staggerer — a kind of of knock-down blow, m fact. The manager reflected a little. He said the argument was one not easy to overcome. But he begged to remind us m the gentlest manner it was m his power to put it that the argument would cut two ways. That if he did not honor our cheque, it would be all the same to the Herald proprietary a hundred years hence. He would rather the argument cut m our direction. Then we implored him to be considerate. Was it not possible, we asked, that he had some sainted cousin or aunt who was m Heaven looking down upon us, hoping that his heart would melt, or that some sympathetic chord would strike responsive to our appeal. We thought this would have done, but it didn't. He merely smiled a smile, and said he was rather busy just then. He would advise us to place ourselves m funds. Wo thanked him for his advice. We said you have been kind so far; and as you are a gentleman a great deal more versed m money matters than we are, will you follow up your advice and kindly, nobly, generously, say Iwvo we are to place ourselves m funds, as you call it. He said, have you not large sums of money owing you 1 We said we had any amount. Heaps of accounts overdue and owing. Then, he said, make people pay. Shut them up sooner than allow yourselves to be shut up. That was the advice of a man with as much iron m his his heart as would make a bolt and a padlock to a prison door. We bid him good morning, and he bid us good morning m a sweet, gentle voice, as if he had been quite charmed with the interview, and would be happy to see us again at our earliest convenience, always, we suppose m case of our being m funds at his establishment. Now our instruction to our collector is to go forth with light heart, and down upon people who do not pay up.