INFORMATION DISMISSED

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8192, 6 August 1912, Page 1

INFORMATION DISMISSED

NOTIFICATION OP BETTING.

PUBLICATION NOT PROVED.

Reserved judgment was delivered by yj W. G. Riddell, S.M., at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday in the .case in which William Scott and, Henry Martindale were charged that on or about July Ist, at Wellington, they published a document containing a notification as to betting on horse races to be run at Trem cham . .At the hearing evidence was given by Detective Ward, of Dunedin, that on July 4th he received thiough tho posl an envelope containing one betting card and two betting charts. He had not the faintest idea as to who sent him the envelope, but from its appearance he would cay that it had been redirected to him from'some other person. The names of events run at TTeutham • were printed on the charts and card. He could not suggest that the envelope he received had oeen redirected to him by an ;agent of the defendants, who, as far as he knew, had no agents in Dunedin. The communication was addressed to the Dunedin police office, ■ and he should not imagine that it had been sent him, as a police officer, by the defendants. Sir John FincUay subm-tted that defendants did not make the publication, and it was not likely that publication was going to be made to a police officer. What proof was there that defendants sent the envelope through the P oß^,^ the postmark. There was no proof that anybody in Dunedin had leceived the envelope. If some unauthorised person tooK the envelope out of defendants’ office and it got into the hands of a police officer that was no prima facie caser ho proof had been adduced that defendants published the document. His Worship said it lay on the prosecution to prove publication beyond all reasonable doubt, and he was not prepared to say that this had been done. The information was dismissed.