TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 71, 24 March 1915, Page 7

TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC.

OFTY JEWELLER SENT TO GAOL A BANKRUPT AND HIS BOOKS.' " I don't see that any real distinction can be drawn, in principle, between the case of a person who does not keep proper books through endeavouring to keep them himself when he knows he is incapable of doing so, and a person who drives a motor car in town, knowing he is not a capable driver, and causes an accident." Thus Mr. Cutten. S.M, in commenting on the charge against Noah Co'hen yesterday, that, 'being a bankrupt, he had failed to keep proper books of account for three years prior to his bankruptcy. It would be quite improper for him, said his Worship, where such a case had been -proved, to say that he thought no punishment should be imposed, though there were cases th 0 circumstances of which would cause a qualification of the punishment, as in the instance of a defendant kept in custody for a long time, awaiting trial. Those circumstances were not present in the case under review. The obiect of the Act was to protect the commercial puolic where persons traded by means, of obtaining goods on credit by ensuring that proper account of the disposal of those goods should be kept. The real punishment for the-offence of not keeping proper books was not the length of the term of imprisonment imposed, but the fact of going to prison at all. The object of the section under which defendant was charged, which did not require that any frand or criminal intention should be proved, was to catch persons who had not kept proper books, and who may have committed breaches of the sections of the Act entailing fraud, but could not b e proved to have done so, because of the deficiencies of his books. Defendant would be convicted and sentenced to a month's imprisonment, with hard labour.