BOOKKEEPING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5334, 12 August 1895, Page 2

BOOKKEEPING.

A telegram from Wellington says that the Stipendiary Magistrate had considerable difficulty on Saturday in dealing with the case of Thomas Dickson, charged with a breach of the Bankruptcy Act, having failed to keep proper bookß. Dickson had been remanded for the Probation Officer's report, and this was favourable to him. Mr Martin said that this waßtho first case of the kind tinder the Act, as in all previous cases there had been an element of fraud. The Crown Prosecutor had stated that there was no suggestion of fraud in the present case, but merely ignorance of the proper way in which books should be kept. He (Mr Martin) had made personal inquiries, and had fonnd that there was truth in accused's statements that the books of the firm in which he had learned his trade and the books of retail grocers generally were kept in a similar manner to his own. The difficulty was to know What to do with the accused. The Legislature had made no distinction between fraudulent bookkeeping and mere ignorance of a proper system. He thought the only thing to do was to bind accused in his own recognisance of JJIO, to come up for sentence when called upon.