A STIFF FINE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 256, 26 September 1933, Page 2

A STIFF FINE

PAKAI'OO PLAYING CASE

MAGISTRATE’S COMMENTS.

Per Press Association

AUCKLAND, Sept. 26. “The worst feature of these pakapoo cases is that we have been receiving letters from the wives of relief workers complaining that their husbands have been losing money in these dens. Quite -recently a boy of fifteen was found in a pakapoo gambling house,” said Detective-Sergeant O’Sullivan, when prosecuting Louey Wong, aged 34, in the Police Court. The police said accused was an agent. The Magistrate. Mr W. R. McKean : These men always seem to be agents. Is it not possible to bring the principals to Court? Detective-Sergeant O’Sullivan said it was very difficult. If one agent was caught another was put in his place. The Magistrate said that the pakapoo dens were run bv syndicates and he had heard something of arrangements about fines. “If the Chinese would keep the game to themselves, then we would have no need to impose heavy penalties, but they do not,” he said. He fined accused £7O, or three months’ gaol, and refused him time to pay. Counsel for accused protested that another Magistrate yesterday had imposed a fine of £lO on a similar charge.