San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-08-21
DEBT DODGING.
Devices and Schemes Of Debtors
to Avoid Collectors.
Humors of Peculiar Phase of Life in the
City -Swells Who Put on q Fine
Appearance at the Expense
of Their Tailors.

edged about the shifts and devices |
used by persons to avoid paying their |
debts. No doubt such debtors might |
be distinguished roughly: Those who
through misfortune cannot cope with
their liabilities, and those who syste-
matically dodge their creditors because
it is not in them TO do the other thing
pay; but, says the Boston Traveller,
they are identical in the sense that both
try TO escape consequences by the exer-
else of curious kind Of wit.
An indignant furniture dealer recent
~ tickled the risible faculties in po-
lice court by his statement of how in
credibly he had been tricled by a debtor
of long standing. Having obtained a
writ for distraint upon the goods sup
piled and not paid for, he and his legal
agent reached the debtors house, to
find it apparently abandoned. The
lower windows were blotched with
whitewash, and upon one of them was
traced the legend: ITO Let" Natural
~ concluding that his bird had flown
the neighborhood to avoid him, he
promptly expended quite considera BILE
sum in fruitlessly trying to trace the
delinquent's whereabouts.
Finally it occurred to him that his
debtors late landlord might be able to
supply hint, and to him he went. I'm
agine his amazement when he was
coolly informed that the house in ques-
ton had never been Ito let," and that
the debtor was certainly still within it,
as his (the landlord's) agent had called
for and received his rent only few
days previously. They went at once to
solve the problem, and then the ele-
ment of mystery dispersed. 1t appeared
that the willy occupant, having timely
warning of his creditors coming, had
shifted his family and his goods to the
top rooms, smudged the windows and
impaired general air of emptiness to
the house, and remained snugly aloft
until, as he imagined, his creditor
would give up the debt as a bad" one.
Being cornered, he had to pay, and was
now sued for the costs of the hunt
which, as no attempt at fraud in a legal
sense could be proved, he managed to
escape.
Rather neat, too was a trick of a diff
ferent sind played recently by swell,
who was wanted" in the matter of an
outstanding tailor's debt. Tapped on
the shoulder as he went to enter a city
restaurant with party of friends, he
was informed that a vehicle waited at
hand for his safe conduct to durance
vile. The situation was awkward, but
his wit and experience made him equal
TO 1t. He left his friends with cool
aside to the effect that he would return
and dine with them in few minutes
and was as good as his word.
He simply requested his captor to
drive to Ibis fathers office" where, he
loftily said, the trumpery debt would
be settled to full satisfaction. Accord
ingly they drove to the Office indicated.
The officer entered with the warrant
and his myrmidon remained at the en-
trance to guard against surprises. But
the debt was not settled on that occa-
sion. The defaulter cooly opened the
door of the first room he came to,
ushered the other in, whipped out the
key from the inside, slipped out, locked
the door, quilted the building by an
other exit, and drove off to keep his
appointment.
The rooted objection, to put it mild
ly, that some people evince to squaring
pecuniary accounts until the law steps
in and compels them is sometimes in
comprehensive. One man of this class,
well known to the writer as a person
able to pay for his extravagances,
spent half his time in lodging and
baking creditors to whom he owed
comparatively trifing sums-purely, it
seemed, for the love of such lodging
Some time back several writs were out
for the arrest of this person, but for
weeks he succeeded in eluding the
holders by all manner of unexpected
tricks.
1t SO happened that one day, how
ever, while leading one warrant Off
Ger a dance in the network of streets,
he ran into the arms of another, and
was Immediately clapped into a cab
and driven to Jail. On the way thither
he begged to be allowed to get
some light refreshment before tasting
prison fare, and as he himself sug-
gested that his coat sleeve should be
securely fastened to that of the officer,
the latter consented, and accompanied
him into hotel for that purpose.
The sequel, in some respects, was a
highly farcical ole. One glass zap
parently without design led to another,
and the defaulter spent almost as much
money in making both cab-driver and
capturer intoxicated upon whisky as
would have enabled him to settle the
debt in the first place. That done, he
cut the fastenings and quietly walked
off.