MULTIPLICATION BUREAU

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 19 October 1933, Page 4

MULTIPLICATION BUREAU

SCHEME HELD TO BE LOTTERY. AUCK LA NO CO UR T DECISION. (By Telegraph—Presa Association , AUCKLAND, Oct. 18. Reserved judgment was given to-day by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in the case of George Kennedy Elliott McLean, charged with managing a lotteryknown as the Multiplication Bureau. The magistrate said that the defendant was manager of a company called Multiple Systems Ltd., which conduct-, ed what he might call a scheme of finance. The nature of the scheme was set out in a pamphlet entitled “The Magic of Multiplication,” which was put in as evidence. After suinmarisng tne scheme the magistrate said that the evidence of Professor Segar told him that, assuming the bureau began with only one member, on the completion of the 16th cycle of succession the membership would have reached many millions. The business term “commission” as applied to moneys to be received iby members was a misnomer. The moneys so promised might be more rightly'.designated prizes to be paid on the happenings of future events. The present scheme was quite unsound economically, and if extended to the whole population must cease for want of new members and result in a debit balance. Jt seemed to him that only the first or early members were likely to receive any* substantial reward, and that the possibility of even the first members receiving payments amounting to £l'soo per annum were too remote to be worth consideration.

The receipt of so-called indirect commissions and the winning of cash prizes was an entirely- fortuitous happening bey'ond' members’ control and dependent upon the ever changing circumstances of the lives and upon the impulses of many thousands of unknown persons. He thought it was a matter of chance, and he was of the opinion that the scheme was a lottery. Defendant was fined £5 Is and costs.