Experiences of a Debt Collector.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 257, 7 February 1889, Page 2

Experiences of a Debt Collector.

|TO THE BDITOB.) Sir,—Soma people think that collecting debts is as easy as eating jam, but this is a delusion and a snare, especially the latter, to a gentleman who seeks to earn an honest livelihood by this apparently easy way. The word ” apparently ” must be understood, as anyone who has essayed the task will well know. There are some men—shall it bo left as written ?—who are so oblivious to their fellow creature's right to live, that however politely they may be requested to pay their just debts, take it as an insult to be asked for money. There are others who with a jocund laugh, pooh-pooh I the idea of “ parting ” these dull times. Others again who protest they have never yet been rendered an account. Others again who flatly and distinctly deny that an indebtedness was ever incurred. This is rough on the debt collector, but he having to discard his right as a gentleman tot the time being, feels very like “ Truthful James," patient, otherwise making his language “ frequent and painful and free." I know a debt collector in this town who is, at least, credited with being a gentleman, and he had amongst others three small accounts to collect from, as he supposed three gentlemen. Two of whom proved to be so, but the third he described to me as follows “ I was never more sold in my life, old fellow. You know my usual suavity of manner? Well, will you believe it? I quietly waited until there was nobody but the great—l’m blest if I know how to put it, but I’ll term him the boss potato—and myself within cooey, and quietly advancing to the big spud I apologised for handing him an account in the street, at the same time walking onwards, so as to disabuse his mind of any idea that I was dunning him. Scarcely had I stepped three yards when I heard, • It makes no matter, I never receive accounts in the street,' and looking round I saw that the memoran. dum I had handed over, had bean ruthlessly torn into pieces.” My informant, whether right or wrong in his statement, puts forward a state of things much too current in Gisborne —that is treating a debt collector as if he were a beggar and certainly not as the agent of someone to whom the person applied to is a debtor. It possibly may tall to my lot, to again give you instances of the idiosyncrasies of those who, although owing, dislike to ba asked for money.—l am, Qctz.