AN AUCKLAND BANKRUPTCY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12185, 29 March 1909, Page 7

AN AUCKLAND BANKRUPTCY.

SOME STRANGE EVIDENCE

(Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, March 26. The creditors of Recce Nicholson, a storekeeper, of Whitianga, near Mercury Bay, met yesterday at the office of tho Official Assignee. The meeting was adjourned last week in order that the presence of Mrs Nicholson might be ensured. In reply to the Official Assignee, Mrs Nicholson said she started storekeeping three or four years ago. She admitted havinc dealt with several firms mentioned by the Official Assignee. In respect to one of the bills Tor £16, which sl?e swore had been paid, the representative of the firm in question denied that any money had been received. Mrs Nicholson said that she had receipts, but when the store was fumigated last August all the receipts and bills were burnt.

.The Assignee: Do you state seriously arid yet ao entry'^f the payment] was made in the firm's books?. Asked if. she had ever received a registered -letter- threatening* "to -make her ~ insolvent'if--'sTie"did'hot settle her bill witness said: I don't remember receiving such a letter. - The-Assignee: Hpvsr soon do you say, you received "iho receipt p,fjj;er- sending tho moheV*"— About a .week", 'I "suppose. It was burned like the others?— Yes. ! Witness added that she' had paid a [ fourth ■ creditor, and owed the firm in b question nothing. The Assignee: Then your impression is that all these firms are trying to take advantage of you?—lt looks very much like it. . "I don't usually express my opinion as I have done in this case," concluded the -Assignee, after giving his opinion of witness's evidence, "but the only alternative to believing that you have lied is that we have a most unscrupulous set of merchants in this" town." Mrs Nicholson (tearfully): "So there is—a lot of scoundrels." Before Mrs Nicholson . signed her sworn statement, the Assignee warned her of the danger of a prosecution for perjury, but she persisted that her evidence was true in every detail.