'A. petition by Mr. Frank L. Hough, Uiquidator of the American Oriental Banking Corporation to pay off all the small accounts in the Bank was granted by Judge Milton J. Helmick In the United States Court for China last Wednesday. The accounts, 3,273 in number, will total approximately $42,000 local. currency, his petition Mr. Hough pointed out that the bank now has a cash balance from collections amounting to $625,000, and that he believed that before liquidation was completed a considerably larger sum of money than at present in the bank will be available for distribution to the deositors and creditors of the bank.
"The total number of accounts in othe bank was 8226, and the 3273 being paid off was about forty per ent of the total. None of these counts was large. In the petition to the Court, Mr. Hough listed the sums that were on deposit in Shang-hal dollars, Tientsin dollars, American money, yen, pounds. Hongkong dollars, and francs, All of the sums mentioned, regardless of the national currency in which they were deposited, are approximately equal to $50 in local currency, Saving of Expense In his petition Mr. Hough stated that the work and the expense of Mquidation would be considerably reduced if the small accounts totalling $50 or less were pald in full, He added that the cost' of the payment of the accounts would be relatively small compared with the total amount which will be available for the deositors and the creditors of the ban} Although, according to Mr. Hough, the other depositors and creditors the bank would not receive payment in full, the saving of the expense of Nquidation will approximately offset the saving of the excess paid to the 8273. depositors, The petition was signed by Judge Helmick in the court this wel and already an the bank arrangements are being made to get all the cheques out before October 1. It is hoped that this can be done. Interest on the accounts will not be paid beyond the date to which interest has already been accrued upon the books and records of the bank, Further, no accounts will be pald to those' depositors who are in debt to the bank.
The interest on the accounts will be payable up until May 28, this year, the last date on which the bank did busine
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.