BOOKMAKER FINED

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 162, 12 June 1925, Page 10

BOOKMAKER FINED

MAGISTRATE’S REMARKS. Per Press Association. lIAWERA June 11. In the Magistrate’s Court David Arthur Anderson pleaded guilty to a charge of bookmaking. Mr O’Dea, for defendant, said that ninetynine out of one hundred juries would not convict for bookmaking. Tho community did not think it was wrong. The present system allowed gambling in land. Bookmaking was allowed in some Australian States, and ho asked if that were worse than tho present holc-and-corncr business in New Zealand.

The Magistrate (Mr Barton) said that only a few years ago bookmaking had been prohibited in this country and the totalisator brought into use to satisfy a public desire. The bookmakers did not assist, but continued their work aguinst the law. Tho Magistrate strongly condemned the operations of bookmakers, declaring that they brought, into being bribery and vice. Even a public service, that should be clean, was debauched and made dirty by bookmakers, who broke the law and found means of escaping punishment. The position, ho considered, would continue to get so bad that in tho end legislators would havo to make a clean up, lie agreed that tho defendant could have gone to the Supreme Court, but he would havo gone, not with the knowledge (hat the police could not prove their ease, but hoping that tho jurymen would bo false to their oaths and not convict. A fine of £IOO was imposed. The Magistrate asked that the eircumctances be reported to the Licensing Committee.