DOMINION NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3585, 10 March 1914, Page 5

DOMINION NEWS.

AN UNUSUAL DEFENCE

[PRiga ASSOCIATION' TEI.Ef-RA.Mi NEW PLYMOUTH. M reh 9. An unusual defence to :harg.-s under the Gaming Act was advance! at the Magistrate’s Court to-day by counsel for Hie defendants. Roy Jury and Thomas Hellier, both of Waitara, were charged with 'having kept a common gaming house and accepted moneys for bets on racehorses. The cases were adjourned from Waitara last week, when the evidence of a constable who had made bets with Hellier was taken and race cards and betting .books found on the premises and on both accused’s produced subject to formal objection by counsel. To-day counsel for the defence urged that the cards and books found on accused were inadmissable as evidence as they were not an instrument of gaming under the Gaming Act, and therefore tih-e police were not empowered to seize them under their warrant. The police were, he said, empoweded after arrest in all cases to seize any incriminating, documents, but in this case the cards and books were seized prior to the arrest.. He quoted cases to show the definition of intruments of gaming, which did not include race cards and books. 'J'he police contended that a betting house was .included under the definition of a gaming bouse and therefore, the instruments of gaming included the instruments of betting. Decision was reserved.

NAVAL FUNERAL. CHRISTCHURCH, March 9. Archibald Thompson, late ward room cook on H.M.S. Psyche, who died at Christchurch Hospital on Saturday from pneumonia, was buried at Sydenham Cemetery to-day with full naval honors.