BANKRUPT STOREKEEPER.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19011, 31 July 1933, Page 6

BANKRUPT STOREKEEPER.

MEETING OF CREDITORB. DEFICIENCY OF £B4O. Francis Johti Roth well, storekeeper, of Whatawhata, met his creditors, before Mr. V. R. Crowhurst, official assignee, at Hamilton this morning. Bankrupt’s schedule showed unsecured creditors totalling £920 and assets £BO, leaving a deficiency of £B4O. In a written statement bankrupt said that he wer 65 years of age. Up to 1925 he had been carting cream. In that year he borrowed £450 from his brother-in-law and started his eldest son in a grocery business in Whatawhata; » .The money was expended In erecting the store and in stock. The whole of the amount had not yet been paid off. He did not supervise his son’s work and he. drew, nothing from the business, though his son drew wages, in 1927 he discovered that the business was well in debt and he quarrelled with his son, with the result that he (the son) left. Bankrupt then put his daughter into the business and insisted that cash be paid for everything. The biggest creditors were merchants and he managed to reduce his liabilities a little.

Bankrupt added that he realised he ‘had made a mistake in leaving the business to the sole control of his son, who was 25 years of age. The depression coupled with the fact that the business was in a farming community, prevented him from recovering when he discovered the way his affairs were heading. There was no quorum present, and the meeting lapsed.