BOOKS INCLUDED

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 11

BOOKS INCLUDED

SECOND-HAND DEALERS' DXJTY

PARTICULARS OF SELLERS

(By Telegraph- —Press Association.) CHRISTCHUKCH, Friday.

That a book is an article within the meaning of the Second-hand Dealers Act, and that books must be entered up ill the same way as other second-hand articles when bought by dealers, were points interpreted by Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., in a reserved judgment to-day in a case in which Albert Thomas Williams, bookseller and stationer, was charged that, being licensed under the Secondhand Dealers Act. he failed to enter ill a book, kept by him under the Act, particulars required by section 8, touching the purchase of two books from a person unknown. The books bad been stolen and wc;r sold to Williams.

"I must confess," said the. magistrate. "that for the purpose of this Act I cannot see much difference between an overcoat and a valuable manuscript, or a first edition, or a valuable picture, or a family Bible. The whole object of the Act is to enable the authorities to trace offenders when such articles are stolen, and, in my opinion, that object will be defeated if too narrow an interpretation is given to the word article, as used in the Act."

Defendant was convicted, but no penalty was imposed.