SALES BY CHANCE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12483, 26 June 1926, Page 4

SALES BY CHANCE

“A VICIOUS SYSTEM” LOTTERIES AT AUCKLAND TOWN BEING SWAMPED Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, June 25. In the Police Court, Wiitred Henry Skeates was charged with disposing or personal property, a fancy necklet, to detective W'hite by chance, and by the sale of a patdset containing a ticket from a number of packets. Detective Hammond said tlie town had been literally swamped with these lotteries during the past lew weeks. Counsel for the defendant said that four other traders had disposed of stock this way before Skeates had adopted the idea, yet no exception was taken. Detective Hammond said there was ono other scheme before Skeates’s, in which the Y.W.C.A. was interested. The defendant was lined £lO and costs. Adrcd Henry Burridge was charged with selling a surprise packet, and Robert Burns with disposing ot toilet soap by chance and by the sale of a pacKet. .Counsel for the defence did not deny that the scheme was a lottery or that a ticket was sold by Burridge, who was one of a syndicate of John Burns and Co.’s employees assisting a good cause. It was submitted that Robert Burns, as managing director, was responsible. No one had received any personal benefit, the whole proceeds being appropriated by the Y.W.C.A. Mr J W. Poynton. S.M., dismissed the charge against Burns under section 92 of the Justice of Peace Act. In fining Burridge £1 and costs, he said: “These causes are becoming a great shelter for such lotteries. Tlie principle it a vicious one. In future people .who run these lotteries must be punished more severely.”