NO LOTTERY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19154, 10 November 1927, Page 3

NO LOTTERY.

SPORTING PICTURES COMPETITION.

[THE PEESS Special Service.]

DUNEDIN, November 9. reserved judgment was given by Mr ,1. R. Bartholomew, S.M., in the Police Court this morning in the case in which Francis Joseph Haywood, publisher of. tho "Southern Sporting Guide," wns charged with commencinc a scheme whereby money was competed for by mode of chance. The defendant's scheme was known as "sporting pictures." Each of the pictures represented the name of a racehorse and only the names of horses found in the "New Zealand Turf Register" and the "New Zealand Referee" were represented. A prize of £lO was provided and the entry fee was one shilling. The conditions stated that there was only one possible solution for each picture, and therefore only one name was allowed for each. The sealed solution was deposited with the defendant's solicitor. The prosecution claimed that thero could lie a number of solutions equally appropriate, and therefore the result was really determined by chance. The defendant disputed this, and said that while some of the pictures might have been taken as representing different hori«s. there was only one completely appropriate solution, which he called the correct solution.

The Magistrate quoted a number of previous cases, in particular the one Part-lay r. Pearson, which, he said, seemed very much in point. Judge Stirling, citing a judgment of the Chief Magistrate at Bow street, apparently assented to the view that if the object of the competition was to find the most "appropriate" word—that was the most appropriate in the opinion of the editor —the scheme would not be a lottery.

''This is substantially what the present defendant attempted to do," concluded the Magistrate, "and in my opinion he has not committed any offence.''