Jew interested in rubber estates was bankrupt in 1915, paid 1s. 3d in the pound to his creditors, and had his discharge suspended for two years. Two years after this fortune had so smiled on him that he was in a position to buy a large house and spend £110,000 in furnishing it alone. He had a fancy for antiques and, being on friendly terms with Mr. Lawrence, a director of the world famous firm of Basil Dighten and Ca., antique dealers of Savile Row, London, that gentleman introduced him to Mr. Basi] Dighton. Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Basil Dighton then sold him £88,294. 2s. 4d. worth of antique furniture, engravings, and pictures, Mr. Shrager still had £25,000 to pay to complete the purchase when fortune frowned on him once more, for the bottom fell out of the rubber market and left him short of ready cash. He tried to raise money by selling some of his antiques but was offered prices for them that compared very unfavourably with those he had paid. He then invited Mr. Frederick Litch-field, a well known expert and writer on antique furniture, to give an expert opinion on his bargains, Mr, Litchfield after seeing them told him that many of them had been purchased for very excessive prices and others were crude takes. Mr. Shrager then called in Mr. Herbert Cecinsky, a world famous authority on furniture faking, whose report_supported che allegations of the other expert. Mr. Shrager then brought an action against Messrs. Basil Dighton and Lawrence, for fraudulent misrepresentation, and the defendants on their part counterclaimed for the £25,000 still unpaid.
The hearing of the case took 23 days in the Official Referee's Court end including the previous hearing before the Lord Chief Justice cost over £50,000 in legal costs. Judgment was given for the defendants} <n all counts, the Official Referee commenting that "Mr. Shrager wanted to get out of his bargain, and thought the best way to do it was to charge the defendants with fraud."
CONSTERNATION AMONG DEALERS, Such is the brief history of a ease which has brought the great and growing trade in antiques to! a complete standstill for three months, and which, im the opinion of experts, has struck it a blow from which it will take years to recover. It was a business always based upon confidence. Few people know anything about antiques. Most wealthy collectors relied on the advice of experts, and the op-Position to their expensive hobby usually came from their closest friends and relations. The revela-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.