The Saint Paul globe., 1897-10-31
RECEIVER OF THE CENTURY
PIANO COMPANY ORDERED TO
APPEAR IN COURT.
HIS REMOVAL is ASKED FOR.
AND TNCoMPE-
TENCY THE BASIS FOR THE
ACTION.
Herring Set for Saturday Next-Gen-
eraI News of the Mill
City.

Judge MCGEE has signed an order to
show cause, returnable next Saturday
afternoon, why Hans o. Peterson, as
signee of the Century Piano company,
should not be removed.
The action has been anticipated for
some time, and both Judge Russell and
Judge MCGEE have had the circum-
stances called to their attention. The
petition, or rather the formal charges,
make a voluminous document of many
pages of typewriter, setting out nine
causes of complaint, any one of which
will be sufficient, if proved, to remove
the assignee. After a preamble, in
which it is cited that as soon as the
attorney discovered the state of things
he wished to resign, but was not allow
ed to by the court, the paper goes into
detail.
The first cause is incompetency, and
shows that there was certain stock at
the factory for which Peterson had
bid Of 81, 800 in claims from Story &
Clark, Chicago, and $1,000 cash from
John Anderson. He never reported
these bids to the court, but. after a
time, offered to present AndersOn's. if
the latter would divide the profits with
him as an Individual. Failing in this,
he tried to have the court allow a
sale of the same stock to one of his
clerks, Oct. 10, which the court refused
to allow. All this time he was paying
$50 per month for rental of the factory
at loss to the estate.
The second charge is making i'm
proper profits from the trust. from the
o1,n nj Io
sold on his own account, pocketing the
profits and giving away with each sale
a scarf and piano cover, which he had
purchased with funds of the estate upon
order of the court, to go with pianos
to be sold by assignee. Carl Raug-
land an old employe of the house,
started to sell organs, which he had
purchased elsewhere, at another sales
room, and Peterson agreed with him
that he could use the Century sales
rooms, If he would divide on the profits
he made. This was done, but upon
Peterson finding out that the salesman
had forgotten to divide on some sales,
he discharged him and hired his son in
his place.
The fourth charge is buying prop
erty from himself and purloining prop
erty belonging to the insolvent estate.
1t is charged that there was a large
marine painting by Lund, worth $100,
which the petitioner had offered $50
for, which Peterson sold supposedly to
clerk named Austin for 500, but
which, in fact, was bought by Peter
son, and is now hung in his house
There is also a piano stool worth So
which it is alleged he has taken for
his own use.
The fifth charge is an attempt to
convert the stock of pianos and Or
gans to his own use. This charge is
that he offered to sell the remaining
stock to his clerk, Austin, without re-
ceiving any bids, the latter to divide
with him the profits.
The sixth charge is allowing loss to
the estate, and charges that he sold
to his clerk a $1,000 note, which was
worth $1,000, for $500.
The seventh charge is that of pay
ing claim in full without an order
of court against the advice of his at
tOrney
The eighth charge is that he has
appropriated to his own use, as is
shown by his books, 81, 500 of the money
OF the estate, which he claims is ad-
vance allowance for his services.
The ninth charge is that he is hope
lessly insolvent, and that he is a stock
holder of the company to the extent of
$6 900.
In all these cases the attorney gives
the names of witnesses which he asks
the court to examine relative to the
matter, and there will be a contest Sat
urday next over the matter. Among
the witnesses are A. Ueland, John An
derson, A. M. Shuehy, Judge Russell,
John Austin, Anna S. Keyes, Hjalmar
Anderson and H. o. Peterson himself.