CO129-251 - Acting Governor Barker - 1891 [9-11] — Page 175

172

executiou creditor can show that the debtor's | inability to satisfy the decree is due to unjusti- fable extravagance în living or that he has wil- fully concealed property or his rights toorinterest therein, or has remorad property or committed some act of bad faith, the debtor will be re. leased, but his property will continue to be liable : to a tachment. But many debtors are not satis. fied with that. On the threat of an action, they either make a deed of arrangement, often mere bogus ones or petition to be made bankrupts or get some friendly creditor to put them into the Court. Then by prolouring proceedings, and get- ting protection, they tire ont creditors, and the final hope is a free discharge, which gives them a clean sheet. Few indeed ever think of repay- ing the creditors whom they have deprived of their money, even if better times cope. It has been held in Bankruptcy Courts that to soak adjudication without assets is a fraud on the bankruptcy laws and petitions have been re- | fused on that score. Of course there are cases where it might be very hard to refuse to ad judicate, but as I have inore than once said it is easy to get made a bankrupt. It is another thing to come out soatheless from the inquisi- torial examination that must necessarily take place, and when it appears that the object of a debtor is not to distribute his assets equally, which is one of the aims of bankruptcy law, but simply to get rid of personal trouble and risk of being arrested and imprisoned under a writ of execution, the examination of his deal-į ings is generally more searching. in the present case, had the bankrupt not bad the Bankruptcy Court to fall back on, he would certainly have had writs of execution against him, and he would have been lodged in gaol under them. Had he applied for a discharge, execution creditors would have had little difficulty in shewing that he had been guilty of unjustifiable extravagance, and some other things which would have prevented the Court ordering his discharge, and I think the thou- sands of dollars lost at poker would probably be considered au extravagance in living utterly unjustifiable in a man who admittedly was over › head and cars in debt in his share speculations. Mr. Gubbay, one of the opposing creditors, stated that he had won $3,000 in voker in games with the bankrupt and others, and although the bankrupt instructed his solicitor to say that Mr Toog had played or was a partner in the game where so much money was lost, I think it right to say that the bankrupt declared on a previous day that “Mr. Tog did not play. I have come to the conclusion that, having regard to previous osses in this Court, it is my olear duty to sentence the prisoner to six months' imprisonment for rash and hazardous specula- tion, and for contracting debts when he could not reasonably expect to pay them, as this is even a worse case than any of those referred to at last sitting He will have his discharge, but must go to prison for six months from date.