PAKAPOO RAID

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 6

PAKAPOO RAID

CHINESE FINED

FAMILIAR ADDRESSES

Four pakapoo "shops" in Haining Street were raided by the police just after 7 o'clock last night and their keepers and five men found on the premises were fined in the Magistrate's Court today.

Fee Young, aged 34, and Willie Wong, aged 36, were each fined £25, in default two months' imprisonment, far using their premises in Haining Street as a common gaming-house, and Joe Wong, aged 51, and Low Tow, aged 61, were each fined £10, in default one month's imprisonment, for the same offence.

For having been found without lawful excuse in a common gaming-house Ngan Lee, aged 44, Young Gee, aged 35, Joe Kwon, aged 32, Clarence Melbourne Wilson, aged 42, and Frank Slemitz, aged 63, were each fined 10s. Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., dealt with the cases. Sub-Inspector C. E. Roach conducted the prosecutions and Mr. C. N. Armstrong appeared for the keepers and other Chinese. All the defendants pleaded guilty.

The Sub-Inspector said that the houses had been visited at about 7.20 p.m. yesterday by Constables Fell, Thompson, Moore, Ross, de Young, Pullman, Brown, and Cummings. Pakapoo paraphernalia had been found on all the premises. Young and Willie Wong had been previously convicted, but this was the first appearance in court of Joe Wong and Tow.

"In comparison with v bookmaking and the running of Calcutta sweeps," said Mr. Armstrong, "the playing of pakapoo is not serious.": He pointed out that only a small outlay was required for pakapoo and he submitted that the purpose of the Act was to prevent people who could not. afford it from financially embarrassing themselves, to the detriment of the State, which would have to support. them. The Legislature deemed it illegal to play pakapoo though it had legalised the totalisator, which counsel thought was a far greater menace to the community. The upbringing of the Chinese made them regard pakapoo as quite lawful, and though they knew it was a technical offence, it was not a moral offence, according to their standards of ethics. That should be taken into consideration when fixing the penalty. There was no real mens rea in Chinese playing pakapoo. The economic conditions of the last few years had made it difficult for the Chinese to earn a living and they had been more or less driven to revert to pakapoo as a means of livelihood.

In reply to a question by the Magistrate, Sub-Inspector Roach said that many of the houses in Haining Street were pakapoo shops that had been raided time after time. When one keeper went to gaol another took his place. "The law provides a severe penalty for this sort of thing," said the Magistratefl "I have heard dozens of addresses on the same thing dnd they all follow the same lines, for counsel, are limited in their argument."