MOTOR CAR RAFFLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 31, 7 February 1933, Page 5

MOTOR CAR RAFFLE.

FINE FOLLOWS CARNIVAL

"LAW BADLY EXCEEDED." For conducting a lottery in which the prize was a baby motor car, Harry Clifton Nicholls, secretary of the Builders' Queen Committee in the reqent carnival celebrations at Napier, was fined £10 and costs by Mr. A. M. Mowlem, S.M., in the Police Court, states the "Daily Telegraph." Senior-Sergeant Pender said that there was no permission obtained to raffle the car. The proceeds had gone to the builders' queen funds. "This sort of tiling mlist be stopped, your Worship," said the senior-sergeant, who mentioned that any person buying a ticket or taking any part in the raffle was also committing an offence. Mr. Langley, for the defendant, said that the committee had existed for the purpose of adding interest to the Napier carnival, and also for the purpose of raising money for the restoration of tho town. Tho next object was to provide two beds at the Napier Public Hospital for the needy, and the final object was to provide assistance for the unemployed boys and girls of the town. Not one of tho officials, in the organisation had received a penny from the campaign. The committee was under the impression that a similar procedure had been adopted by a Wellington organisation, and they had considered that they could follow this course. A similar charge was preferred against Louis Splro, secretary of the Unemployment Queen organisation, in respect of a lottery in which the prize was a steel engraving valued at £5. He was fined £5 and costs. In imposing the fines, the magistrate said: "There is no doubt that this sort of thing must stop. The earthquake disaster brought forth quite a crop of undesirable elements, and Napier was subjected to raids by people who had no conscience whatever arid got away with everything possible. These cases appear to have been the acts of thoughtless men, but they have badly exceeded the law."