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Dunnet, Gummings & GU. of Boston are Bankrupt. Liabilities, $1,714,368; Assets, Not Over $200,000, If Any. A Camden, Me., Bank Creditor for $6480-C.6. Moffett, Rockland, $22,666. Boston, May 25.-Seventy-one banks and trust companies, most of them in Massachusetts, but many located in various parts of the country, are among the creditors of the banking firm of Burnett, Cummings & Co., of this city, which, today. filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy in the United States direct court with liabilities placed at $1.714,368. The assets are stated to be uncertain. The creditors have been given to understand that they will not exceed $200,000. if indeed, they prove to be of any value. The bankruptcy petition is the earliest filed in the district since the present bankruptcy laws went into effect in Massachusetts. Attorney J. T. Auerbach, counsel for the bankrupt firm, said that the cause of the failure was the building and & Boston Railfinancing of the Con way Co., the Middlebor Wareham & Buzzards Bay Street Railway Co., the Lowell & Boston Street Railway and the Bristol County Railway Co. These roads were in thinly settled districts and were unable to make suitable connections with roads running to Boston. The four companies were placed in the hands of receivers and thereupon, the nets given by them became valueless. Furtherwore, the Massachusetts Sureties Co's. bonds, which were secured by obligations of these electric railways lost their value and entailed losses upon the firm. Lawyer Auerbach stated also that the buying of the Hampden Trust Co., of Springfield, and of the Taunton Safe Deposit & Trust Co., which unknown to the firm, were in serious financial straits and which were placed in the hands of receivers, hastened the firm's financial embarrassment. The secured creditors number 87 and the unsecured 81. There are 32 savings banks in the list of creditors and 13 Massachusetts National banks. One of the largest creditors is 11. Worcester Five Cent Savings Bank, with a claim of $80,600. Other bank creditors are the Danvers Savings Bank, Danvers, for $26,721; Millbury Savings Bank, Millbury, for $26,660; City National Bank, Lynn, for $10,789: Newton Savings Bank, for $35,154: and the International Trust Co., Boston, for $44,495. All these claims are in the secured list. Among the other large claims, most of them unsecured, are the Lynn Five Cents Savings Bank, $21,899; National Bank of the Republic, $17,000; City Savings Bank. Providence, R. I., $20,711; Kingston National Bank, Kingston, R. I., $26.000; Megunticook National Bank, Camden, Me., $6480. and the Crocker Institution for Savings, Turner Falls Mass., $4158. The largest individual claim is that of Frank C. Wood of East Boston, for $13.000. C. G. Moffett. of Rockland, Me., has a claim for $22.666. The firm of Burnett, Cummings & Co., is composed of Archie C. Burnett and Charles S. Cummings, 24. The firm has been in business three years and a half, succeeding the firm of C. S. Cummings & Co. Mr. Burnett has had no connection with the business for over two years. According to Lawyer Auerbach, he left the firm upon finding that its business was devoted to financing suburban street railways instead of the purchase and sale of municipal and railroad bonds. In connection with the bankruptcy, the State savings bank commissioners said. this afternoon, that so far as their investigations had gone the savings banks which had loaned money upon the Massachusetts securities bonds had not violated any laws of the commonwealth. The effice of the bankrupt company is at 13 Milk street, this city.
