15,314. Did you not always take your supplies princ.i.p.ally from the agent with whom you were engaging for the year?-Yes, princ.i.p.ally.
15,315. You were five years with Mr. Tait; that would be down to 1866: who did you go to then?-I went back to Mr. Leask.
15,316. Have you been engaged with him ever since?-No; I was with Mr. Tulloch in 1868.
15,317. Why did you leave Mr. Leask at that time?-I don"t know.
The ship was not in that I was going with, and I just shipped in another one.
15,318. Did you take your supplies from Mr. Tulloch that year?- Yes, whatever small things I wanted.
15,319. Had you been quite clear with Mr. Leask the year before, and got payment of your balance in money?-Yes. I got paid in the Custom House that year.
15,320. Was the amount of your account at Mr. Leask"s shop deducted when they paid you at the Custom House?-Yes.
15,321. Then it was merely the balance that was paid to you there?-No; I got the full amount, and paid them back.
15,322. Did you go down to the shop and pay them back there?- Yes.
15,323. Had you seen your account at the shop before?-Yes.
15,324. Is that the way in which you have been settled with ever since?-Yes.
15,325. You see your account beforehand, and then go up to the Custom House, get payment of the cash, and then you bring down the money and settle your account?-Yes.
15,326. When you left the shop after seeing your account and went up to the Custom House, were you told to come back and pay your account the same day?-Yes.
15,327. You were always reminded of that?-Yes.
15,328. And when you came back to pay your account, were you asked if you wanted any more goods?-No. I did not buy anything unless I chose.
15,329. Do you generally get your last payment of oil-money in cash, or in goods?-In cash; but if I want them, I can get it in goods.
15,330. Do you sometimes want it in goods?-Sometimes we may take some trifling things on it if we want them, but if not we get it all in money.
15,331. Have you any reason to complain of having to go to the Custom House and then to go down to the shop and pay your money?-No.
Lerwick, January 30, 1872, JAMES COUTTS, recalled.
15,332. You have now produced to me the book containing your transactions in the brokery line: are all [Page 388] your transactions in that business entered there?-Yes, so far as I know.
15,333. These transactions do not appear to have amounted, on the whole, to more than two or three per month on an average?- There might be that in some months, but in other months there would be nothing. It was a rare case when I bought anything in that way at all; it was merely when anything was brought to me that I thought worth buying.
15,334. Were these articles paid for in cash or in provisions?- In cash first, and then the people might spend it in provisions afterwards. I have seen me get all the money back again before they went out.
15,335. Have you known many instances of knitters bringing goods or articles of dress to you and selling them?-I never questioned them about that. If they came with an article, I asked their name and the price, but that was all. I have also asked them if they were sure it was not stolen; I was very particular about that.
15,336. Have they ever told you that the goods they were selling were goods that they had got for knitting?-I recollect them saying once or twice that they had taken them for their hosiery, but they took money from me when I bought the goods from them.
15,337. But they told you they had got these goods for hosiery?- They had perhaps got them out of certain shops; but I believe they had generally got them on credit, until they had something made which would pay for them.
15,338. Were these women employed in knitting?-Yes; but there were only one or two cases of that kind.
15,339. But you have known two or three cases in which women, known to you to be knitters, came with goods in that way and sold them?-Yes, they would say they had got them from so and so; but I don"t recollect any particular party.
15,340. Can you point to any of these transactions in the book?- No; I don"t recollect whether the articles that were entered in the book were got from knitters or from other parties. Sometimes they wanted cash for their goods, because they could not get cash at the shop where they were dealing.
15,341. But, in these circ.u.mstances, the people who were refused the cash got the goods, as you understood at the time?-Yes, I understood so.
15,342. And they took the goods, and brought them to you and got the cash?-Yes.
15,343. Did you know that these goods were got at a shop where hosiery was taken?-I cannot tell; I never asked about that. They may have said so but perhaps that might have been false.
15,344. Did they give the name of any party from whom they had got the goods?-No; they just said they had got the goods when they could not get the cash.
15,345. May that have been said half a dozen times?-Not so many. I only recollect hearing of it once or twice.
15,346. Do you say that it has not happened half a dozen times in the ten or eleven years that you have been in business?-I don"t recollect it happening so often as that. I just recollect hearing it spoke about.
15,347. Do people sometimes come to you yet offering articles for sale, although you have given up that part of your business?-Yes, occasionally; but not so much now as before I gave it up.
15,348. Do you not sometimes take them still?-I don"t think I have taken any since the 1st entry in the book on April 15, 1870.
15,349. Are you quite sure that you have never bought any article at all in your shop since then?-Not that I recollect.
15,350. Would you be likely to forget if you had done it?-I don"t know; but I have not done it, so far as my recollection goes. I have once bought a jacket which I wore myself; but it was from a friend, a party that I knew, and it was not a thing that I was in the way of buying.
15,351. Can you swear that you have not had more than half a dozen applications, in the whole course of your business, from women whom you knew or supposed to be knitters, asking you to give them money or provisions for goods which they had got for their hosiery?-They never asked provisions for them. If they wanted provisions, they took them out afterwards; they just asked for the cash, and I gave them what I thought the article was worth to me.
15,352. Do you swear that you have not had more than half a dozen such applications in the course of your business?-I don"t recollect more than one or two. Of course, I did not ask them pointedly where they had got the articles, or how they had got them, except merely that I wished to know that the articles had not been got in a dishonest way.
15,353. But I see that a great number of the entries in the book relate to transactions with females?-Yes.
15,354. Can you swear that the majority of these women were not knitters who were in the habit of dealing with hosiery shops, and who came to you and got cash for the goods which they had got there?-That might have been so, but I really cannot say.
15,355. Can you swear that one out of every two of these women did not come and sell goods to you which she had got in that way?-She might have got them in that way, but I cannot tell.
15,356. Were most of the purchases which you made, of new articles or of old?-The greater part of the things had been worn.
15,357. Do you think there was any other way in which the women got these articles, except by getting them from the hosiery shops?-Certainly.
15,358. Were there some of them which had been got at the agents" shops where the women were supplied, while the men were away at the fishing?-They might have had accounts at these shops, and got goods there in part payment for the men"s wages.
Lerwick, January 30, 1872, Mrs. BARBARA DALZELL, examined.
15,359. Do you live in Scalloway Road, Lerwick?-Yes.