SECOND-HAND DEALERS ACT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8481, 16 July 1913, Page 2

SECOND-HAND DEALERS ACT

INTERPRETATION OR RESTRICTIVE SECTOIN. Press Association' AUUCEAJND. July U. That secondhand dealers may not purchasa or receive goods from buys apparently under sixteen years of age was the interpretation placed by Mr is. L. (Jutien, S.M.. this morning, on one of the restrictive sections of the Secondhand Dealers Act. J. Regan, a secondhand dealer, in Victoria street, was charged that he had purchased or received goods from a email boy twelve or thirteen years of age. The boy called with a dozen sacks ior sale, having oeen sent, he said, by Ins mother, and the dealer wrote out a note for the mother to sign before he would take the sacks. The boy brought the note back signed, and the dealer made the purchase. Mr Donniston, for defendant, said he represented the association as well as the defendant, and he would like a ruling on the matter. It had been the practice of members of the association for thirty or forty years to receive goods from boys under sixteen when they brought a note indicating for whom they were acting an agent. This was done, of ooursd, only in cases where the dealer knew the boys and the parents or person for whom they were acting. His Worship said that the whole policy of the Act was to save secondhand dealers from assisting thieves, and the object of the particular restriction In question was to get persons wanting to sell goods to go personally to the dealer as the responsible person whoso name could be taken and recorded, and who could be observed by the dealer. The section must be strictly construed, and it was an offence to purchase or receive from a person under sixteen years of age under any circumstances, note or no note. The case was a test one. involving an important principle, and the penalty would be made light in this instance. Defendant would be convicted and fined IDs and costs.