SURPRISE PACKETS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 176, 26 June 1926, Page 13

SURPRISE PACKETS

; \ FINES AT AUCKLAND. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Juno 25. In the Magistrate's Court- to-day Wilfred Henry Skeates was charged with disposing of jiersonal property, a fancy necklet, to Detective White by chance, and by the sale of a packet containing a ticket from a number of packets. Detective Hammond said the town had been literally swamped with these lotteries during the past few weeks. Counsel for the defendant said that four other traders had disposed of stock this way before Skeates had adopted the idea, yet no exception was taken. Detective Hammond said there was one other scheme before Skeats’s, in which the Y.W.C.A. was interested. The defendant was fined £lO and costs.

Alfred Henry Burrage was charged with selling a surprise packet, and Robert Burns with disjrosing of toilet soap by chance and by the sale of a packet. Counsel for the defence did not deny that tho scheme was a lottery or that a ticket was sold by Burrago, who was one of a syndicate of John Burns and Company’s employees assisting a good cause. It was submitted that Robert Bums, as managing director, was responsible. No one had received any personal benefit, tho whole proceeds being appropriated by the Y.W.C.A.

Mr Poyntqn dismissed tho charge against Burns under section 92 of the Justice of Peace Act. In fining Burridge £1 and costs, the Magistrate said: “These causes are becoming a great shelter for such lotteries. The principle is a vicious one. In future people who run these lotteries must bo punished more severely.”