CAMINC CHARGES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 75, 9 October 1928, Page 11

CAMINC CHARGES

Another raid was made by detectives in the Chinese quarter of the city yesterday afternoon. A shop at 154, Taranaki street, was visited, and five men—three European's and two Chinese —were arrested. The Europeans, George Chipperfield, I aged 34, James Kavanagh, aged 48, and ■ William John Baker, aged 52, appeared in the Magistrate's Court late in the aiternoon, and pleaded guilty to having been found in a common gaming house. Each was fined £2 and costs. Wong Wai, a fruiterer, aged 57, and Ah Lee, a cook, aged 29, came before Mr. E. Page, S.M., to-day. Wong Wai pleaded guilty to having used 154, Taranaki street, as a common gaming house, and Ah Lee admitted having been found on the premises. Chief-Detective Ward said that Wong ■ Wai had kept the shop for some months. It wag the usual type of Chinese gaming house, where pakapoo was played. So I far as was known neither Wong Wai nor |Ah Lee had been before the Court previously. In answer to the Magistrate, the Chief Detective said that pakapoo tickets were sold at the shop. The premises had been raided in January of last year, but WongWai was not the keeper then. He understood Wong Wai had been "keeping" for three or four months. Mr. A. J. Mazengarb, counsel for the two defendants, said that apparently Wong Wai's shop was the only gaming house known to the police that had not been raided last week. Wong Wai and Ah Lee sold pakapoo tickets on commission, and acted as salesmen to a pakapoo bank. The real offenders were Europeans who went foolishly to* tho shops and1 bought pakapoo tickets. Wong Wai, he thought, was not physically fit to carry on his normal occupation of a gardener. "A large number of these men drift into town," added counsel, "and if one or other of their usual occupations is not open to them they take up premises which they use for other purposes— restaurants, etc. —and drift into selling pakapoo tickets to Europeans." He asked that both the defendants be dealt with as leniently as possible. Wong Wai was fined £15, in default one month's imprisonment, and Ah Lee £2, in default fourteen days' imprisonment. Wong Wai was allowed a fortnight to pay the fine.