JACOBS’S APPEAL

Evening Star, Issue 22070, 2 July 1935, Page 8

JACOBS’S APPEAL

THE TICKET IN TATIS CASE FULL COURT RESERVES DECISION TPbr United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, July 2. ’ The Solicitor-General (Mr H. H. Cornish, K.C.) resumed his address to the Full Court this morning in the case of V. S. Jacobs v. Detective-sergeant Doyle, an appeal against conviction for selling -a, ticket in Tattersall’s. He submitted that the appellant, in collecting and forwarding moneys from New Zealand, assisted in the operation of a lottery, and hence was liable to a penalty. When the Chief Justice asked: Do you say it is unlawful for a person himself to send money abroad for a ticket in a lottery? the SolicitorGeneral said: I submit that that question is not basic to the matter before the court. _ The Chief Justice; I think it is. The Solicitor-General : I would prefer not to answer it.

The Chief Justice; Well, I think it may b© basic, but if you can’t answer it, it matter. The Solicitor-General: Perhaps_ I can go this far, that I am not going to submit or build any argument that it is unlawful. The Chief Justice: Then, if that is so, you get this fantastic result—that a person is able to send money to Tasmania himself, yet if he. does it through an agent, on your argument he may be held liable as assisting in the commission of an offence.

The Solicitor-General: But an agent does more in New Zealand than the principal would do. Ho collects the moneys; therefore he does something to assist a lottery The Solicitor-General contended that, on Mr Sinclair’s submission, it would be lawful for a person to purchase a number of books of tickets in Australia, and come to New Zealand and sell them up and down the country, and so long as he was not acting, as an agent of Tattersall’s He could not be convicted. Yet there could be no doubt that the selling in New Zealand of a ticket in a foreign lottery constituted an offence. Mr Sinclair had contended that it was necessary for the Crown to establish the legal/ agency between Tattersall’s. and the appellant, but it was exceedingly difficult for the Crown to show that any given person was an agent of Tattersall’s. Nevertheless, it was clear that Jacobs was in reality an agent of Tattersall’s. He had been selling tickets for a number of years, and had received prizes on two occasions foi so doing. Tattersall’s were not handing out prizes to people such as appellant for nothing. They were not a charitable institution, but Hard business men, and these prizes were the form that the remuneration of. their agents took. The court reserved its decision.