JUDGMENT DEBTORS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 99, 26 April 1912, Page 5

JUDGMENT DEBTORS.

AX AUSTRIAN IN COURT. Judgment debtors are ever unwilling to disclose details of their monetary transactions, but it is fortunate for local counsel that the majority of them are not so evasive as the Austrian who spent over an hour in the box this morning at the Magistrate’s Court. Joseph Cehallo, judgment debtor, was first on the application of Mr T, C. Eookes, ordered by Mr \V. G. K. Kenrick, S.M., to pay J. Masters and Son the sum of £l3 7s 3d, in default fourteen days, the warrant to be suspended providing he paid the money in instalments of £1 per month. Mr Spence then examined the debtor in another case, where William Sharrock claimed from the aforesaid Joseph Cebalio the sum of £l6 9s, being money due on wages and for hire of .horse and cart.

Mr Spence taxed witness with having signed before his partner (Mr Stanford) an order on his employer for payment of the amount, in respect of which order the judgment debtor had refrained from pursuing the case further in Court, and obtaining the order for which lie now asked. Witness denied having signed any order, but within ten minutes counsel obtained from him the reply: “I ’spose 1 sign my name, yes.” Proceeding, Mr Spence asked witness if it was not a fact that within two days of his signing that order, he did go to his employer and obtain the money due to him for a certain drainage contract. “ What do you mean,” he asked, “by giving an order and then going and drawing the money yourself?” Witness would not give a direct answer, and on the Magistrate exhorting him to speak the truth, Mr Spence ejaculated, “Truth—lie doesn’t know what truth is.”

Witness then admitted that he had drawn from his employer the sum of £lB. The money was paid by cheque, but he did not know on what date it was paid, and could not give the name of the bank at which it was cashed. Mr Spence threatened to bring witness’s employer into Court to give them the date required: and lie gently intimated that this would be at witness’s expense. It was then ascertained that he received the cheque either two days before or two days after witness had signed® the order. He admitted having money in his pocket when he signed that document. Mr Kenrick suggested that if witness had only just received -this £lB ho would not have, with this money in his pocket, gone to Mr Spence’s office and signed an order on his employer for payment of money he had already received. Witness made a lengthy reply, and commenced to talk about contracts, etc.

Mr Spence; “You see how cute he is, your Worship; you had him cornered and he gets off the question immediately and talks about contracts.’'

In giving judgment, his Worship said the judgment debtor had been dishonest right through, and deserved imprisonment straight away. He asked the debtor’s nationality, and elicited that he was an Austrian. H'f Worship said that he had been on the Continent, and debtor would -get as much justice in this country as he would get in his own country. “You will get also,” he added, “justice in another form which you won’t care for if you behave in this way.” Mi Kenrick also commented on the fact that debtor had endeavoured to get out of paying his employee. He pocketed all the contract money and spent it. whereas the first claim on the money was that of his workmen. “The wholething from beginning to end is dishonest,” Mr Kenrick concluded, as he made an order for payment of the sum forthwith, in default one month’s imprisonment, the warrant to be suspended providing the judgment debtor paid the amount before May 26th.