PRAYER MEETING OVERFLOW

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 300, 19 December 1922, Page 5

PRAYER MEETING OVERFLOW

■ —.. ■# ■■■■ ■ AT THE GAMING TABLE. CHINESE AND A CONVICTION. tHing Gow, Ma Chuck, and Haing Gow were the names of three Chinese games | which were heard frequently at the j Auckland Supreme Court to-day during the hearing of an appeal by Wong Doo | against his conviction four months ago of having kept a gaming house at 49. Hobson Street. The appellant was reprf,sented by Mr. ' R. P. Towle and Mr. L. P. Leary, and the j respondent, Detective Meiklejohn, was represented by Mr. S. L. Pfiterson. Mr. Towle contended that the premises were not a gaming house in that the place did not constitute a public nuisance. Mr. Leary said the house was undoubtedly being run as a club which it was intended to incorporate. It was a i large two-storey building. There was! nothing secret about it. The Chinese ' resided there, and the sick and indigent were taken, as it were, on the public list. THE SPIRITUAL ADVISER Counsel pointed out that the club had one Officer not found in European clubs, namely, a kind of spiritual adviser, who held meetings there every Sunday evening. On the night of the police raid a meeting was in progress, the room being full. Bibles had been freely distributed, and there was no reason to suppose it was not a bona fide meeting. The people who were, gaming were the overflow who could not get into that meeting. They simply went into a back room for a small game. There was no secrecy about it. Why, asked Mr. Leary, should not the I Chinese have their rubber of whist at their own club just as Europeans had theirs? It would be an untenable argument to say that European clubs were gaming houses because they allowed whist and bridge. Even poker had been declared a game of skill in Australia, i Surely the Chinese were entitled to their j class of games as much as anyone else- j There was considerable argument as to ! whether the magistrate in his judgment found that the particular game played was purely a game of chance or whether it was a game of chance and skill, and his Honor said that he would have to get that matter cleared up before the case could proceed further. The appeal was accordingly adjourned.