OPIUM CHARGES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 17

OPIUM CHARGES

CHINESE OX SUSTENANCE METHOD OF PAYING FINES COMMENT BY MAGISTRATE [BT TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION'] WELLINGTON, Friday Two Chinese. both on sustenance, Jay Gee, aged 55, and Jim Hong, aged 63, were each fined £'2s to-day, in default two months' imprisonment, for being found ill possession of prepared opium. "It. comes as a rudo shock," said Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., "that men who aro spending half-a-crown a day on opium smoking aro receiving 21s a week out of the public funds. It is a matter which requires investigation. If the unemployment inspectors had inquired carefully into their affairs it seems incredible that these men, who havo been convicted and heavily fined, could have been subject to relief." The men were found among a party that formed the subject of prosecutions yesterday, following a raid in Haining Street the previous day, and both had opium.

Hong, who was fined £2O in March, denied being the one with a jar of opium in his possession. He indicated that he had just finished paying his March fine. He said his fines Avere paid by borrowing from relations. When an interpreter made this explanation there was a roar of laughter. Asked about a fine in May of last year, Hong's reply was that he had plenty of blood relations. The Magistrate: Fortunately for him he has a benevolent State to subsidise him at the rate of 21s a week. Evidence was given by Xgan Yen that he was the keeper of tho house, and that in the police raid he lost track of the jar. However, he had denied yesterday that he was the keeper, and now claimed to be in partnership with another man.