MEETING OF CREDITORS

Southland Times, Issue 17866, 17 January 1918, Page 4

MEETING OF CREDITORS

ESTATE OF WM. BRYCE. A meeting of creditors in the estate of Wm. Bryce, hotelkeeper, of Benmore, wu held in Invercargill yesterda}', the deputyOfficial Assignee presiding. The statement of affairs showed unsecured creditors to the amount of £470, the principal being; Speight and Scoullar (Dunedin) £2OO, Geo. McDonald (solicitor, Invercargill) £45, Moffett and Co. £BO, J. G. Ward and Co. £7O, Mathesons Ltd. £l4, Macalistcr Bros, (solicitors, Invercargill) £24, Mrs Bentley (wages, preferential i £2O, Southland Times £S, Southland County £7. Secured creditors (with estimated value of securities), Alex. Gcrrard (Barkly), £2006 (£2750); Speight and Scoullar, £650 (£600) ; J. Crowe (farmer, America), £225. This gave a surplus of securities of £468. In addition to this there was £290 assets for unsecured creditors. Mr Gerrard had a mortgage on the hotel property, Speight and Scoullar a second mortgage over the same and a security over adjoining farm in which debtor had an equity of £6OO. Mr Crowe had a third mortgage over the hotel) The land (93 acres) and hotel were valued at £2750. In a sworn statement, debtor said that he had been in the Benmore Hotel this time since about July, 1915. He was in the hotel on two former occasions and sold out. When he went in last time he paid £3200 for the property and £SOO for stock and furniture. He borrowed £/00 of the money from Speight and Scoullar. He had about £6OO of his own, represented by a mortgage from Crowe to him. Debtor Sold to Crowe in the first place and then bought back from him. To complete the purchase he had to give Crowe a third mortgage for £425, of which there was now repaid £2OO. Having no assistance of his own, he had to engage all the help for the hotel and, not being able to read or write, he . never knew how things were going. He seemed to have been getting further into debt all the time. The anti-shouting law had affected the business detrimentally. Debtor had the usual books kept for him by a local man. There was a debt due to him by Oakden (deceased) amounting to £B6. It was for money lent, or paid on his account, and board and lodging. Oakden had stayed in the hotel for 18 months, and represented himself as a remittance man, with money to come to him. When on a visit to Invercargill to draw money to pay debtor he took ill and died in a private hospital. Debtor was pressed by a creditor I who put the bailiff in, so he was forced to I file to protect his other creditors. | The meeting, at which Mr Meredith apI peared for the debtor, and Mr O’Beirne for i Scoullar and Speight, adjourned until 10 ! o’clock this morning.