CHEATING THE STATE.

Free Lance, Volume XIX, Issue 1013, 26 November 1919, Page 10

CHEATING THE STATE.

Fines the Proper Punishment. A SURPRISING decision of the Christchurch Stipendiary Magistrate last week was that in the case> of a laundry manager, who gave orders military blankets riot to be properly washed, but subjected to a fake cleaning. The evidence in the case disclosed an instance of meanness and disrHonesty. It wag apparently nothing to this laundry manager that the blankets were to be used by the men who had fought for their country and that not being properly : washed they might carry with them the germs of dangerous infection. It was nothing apparently to him that a good, honest price was being paid for the work. All that he apparently cared about was to have a good profit, and' this he thought to attain by saving the working costs bill by tKe simple device of cutting out both labour and soap. '"'■'* : * o * # * ; N,ow we come to-the punishment inflicted. It was a fine of £50! What oh earth is. the good of merely fining a man who can be guilty of such mean trickery as that sheeted home to this laundry manager? Even if he has had to pay the fine himself it cannot- be regarded as a fitting penalty for such an offence, as that of which this fellow was proved guilty. A sentence to imprisonment with hard labour would have been none too severe a sentence.