Tesla Has Only Credit - Inventor, at Supplementary Inquiry, Denies Owning Anything

Inventor, at Supplementary Inquiry, Denies Owning Anything.

Testimony given by Nikola Tesla, the electrical inventor, in a supplementary proceeding begun by the city to collect a judgment for $933 for personal taxes, was filed yesterday with County Clerk Schneider. Mr. Tesla said under oath that he was penniless, and had been living on credit. His home is the Waldorf, He was asked:

"How do you live?"
"Mostly on credit," he replied. "I have a bill at the Waldorf that I have not paid for several years."

"Are there any other judgments against you?"
"Scores of them.

"Does anybody owe you any money?"
"No sir.

"Have you any jewelry?"
"No, Sir; Jewelry I abhor."

Mr.. Tesla said he was the President and Treasurer of the Tesla Company of 8 West Fortieth Street. The company was organized in 1895 with $5,000 capital; which was afterward increased to $300,- 000. He owned nine-tenths of the stock, but he said it had all been pledged between 1808 and 1902 inclusive. Asked if the company was earning anything Mr. Tesla replied that its income was about $350 or $400 a month, "just enough to Day expenses." The company started with 200 patents, but all of them, except a few, had run out or had been lost for non-payment of fees.

Asked with whom he had pledged his stock Mr. Tesla replied that it was given to "bankers, to friends, to judgment creditors, to two friends and others. Mr. Tesla said that he owned no real estate in this country, and that he had no automobiles or any property whatever. Once he had $1,000 in a trust company but that was gone. The Secretary of his company, he said, was George Scherff a bookkeeper employed at 17 Battery Place. Among the directors of the company were Diaz Brutrago and Fritz Lowenstein.

Justice Finch of the Supreme Court appointed Robert McC. Marsh receiver for Mr. Tesla.