A PAK-A-POO LOTTERY.

Evening Star, Issue 12928, 26 September 1906, Page 4

A PAK-A-POO LOTTERY.

«»i LEE SUN'S PENALTIES. Sitting at his house on Friday, His Honor Mr Justice Chapman, on the application of Mr Hanlon, granted a rule nisi to quash the decision of Mr C. C. Graham, S.M., by which a Chinaman named Lee Sun was convicted of having sokl a ticket in a pak-a-poo lottery, and was fined £IOO and sentenced to three naxnths' imprisonment. This morning the matter came before His Honor again in banco on a motion to make the rule absolute. Mr Hanlon appeared in support of the motion, and Mr Eraser (Crown Solicitor) to oppose. The Gaming and Lotteries Act provides that for selling a pak-a-poo ticket a person is liable to a penalty not exceeding £IOO, and that for a second offence six months' imprisonment may be inflicted in addition to the fine. In this case tho information charged the defendant with having sold a pak-a-poo ticket, but did not allege that he had beeni previously convicted of a similar offence. The magistrate convicted the accused and fined him £IOO. The police then informed the Court that Lee Sun had been convicted of a similar offence iu 1904 ; but they gave no sworn evidence as to tho fact of such conviction. The magistrate stated that he wou4d increase the penalty and odd three months' imprisonment to the fine. The main questions fox His Honor to decide were whether or not it was within the jurisdiction of the magistrate to inflict imprisonment, seeing that there was no sworn evidence bo identify the accused with a previous conviction; and whether the accused ought not to have hud the option of trial by jury in view of the fact that, although the inlormation did not show that he was entitled to it, the magistrate had assumed jurisdiction to inflict imprisonment. Also, the point was raised incidentally, as a matter of practice, whether, where a greater punishment could be inflicted far a second offence, the fact of a previous conviction ought not to be stated in the information. An interesting feature of the ease was as to how far a magistrate may take judicial cognisance of the fact that he himself had previously convicted a defendant, and thus obviate the necessity of proving the conviction in. the ordinary way. ' His Honor, after hearing counsel for and against the motion, reserved his decision.