A LAMBING-DOWN CASE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13136, 21 November 1904, Page 3 (Supplement)

A LAMBING-DOWN CASE.

(Fnou Odb Own Correspondent.) OHRISTCHURCII, November 8. A ease of lambing down was investigated at the Magistrate's Court to-day, when Francis Mulhollanc), licensee of the Bower Hotel, Jiimvood, was chargod before Mr W. K. Ilaselden with having permitted drunkenness to take place in the hotel. Mr Stringer explained that Clinton, a well-to-do farmer, who seemed to have been acquainted with Mulholland, came to Christclrareh on October 25, and after transacting some business with Matson and Co., proposed to leave for his homo at Darfield the same afternoon. He missed his train, and was driven to the Bower Hotel by Mulholland, whom he had met during the afternoon. Clinton wps then under the- influence of liquor. One of Matson and Go.'s clerks went down to the hotel to try and get Clinton away, but Mulholland refused to allow the clerk to have anything to do with Clinton or to endeavour to get him home. Later in the afternoon Matson aim •00. sent two other clerks down, and they also failed to get Clinton away. The next morning a complaint was made to the police, but in the meantime Mulholtynd had come to town with Clinton. During the night ho was at-.the Bower Hotel Clinton had written cheques to the amount of over £150. It was possible that some of the cheques were not really handed over, but were destroyed. A bookmaker named M'Nab got a cheque for £52, which i™ promptly cashed the next morning, and Mulholland himself got one for £45, which he also cashed in the morning. Mr Eipponbergcr said tlipt tlie defendaut had sold out of the premises. He believed that M'Nah'a £52 would be repaid to Clinton. Whatever fine was imposed would affect the defendant personally, but any endorsement would affect the landlord and the mortgagees, who were entirely innocent of wroag-doiiig. If tljo new Licensing Apt had been assented to it would be optional for a magistrate to say whether the license should be endorsed or not. ffhs mtgfatiyte 'pointed out Jhat the only

ground for not endorsing (he license would be that punishment'would not fall upon the right shoulders. The case was a typical one of. tho old praotieo of "lambing down." Ho had to consider the matter of endorsement in a case heard at Wellington, and lie hud .deliberately allowed the license to escape endorsement when the licensee had been turned out, and it seemed to him that under the circumstances,; to punish the landlord would really bo an injustice. Other magistrates, however, took an entirely opposite) view, ai)d the course he had followed had been denounced as one which ought not to havo been followed by any magistrate at all. He would be inclined to say that tho present ease was' particularly one for endorsement, and it would be such a case tlmt would retain tho endorsement penalty in the statute. Tho house was conveniently eituated out of town for thsc sort of work, and he failed to see what proper punishment could be invented for tho prevention of such offences. There might be some, difference of opinion about the moral iniquity of selling a glass of grog after hours, or on a Sunday afternoon, but thero could bo 110 difference of opinion of tho sort of thing disclosed in tho present case. The defendant would bo lined £20, with costs, and £4- witnesses' expenses.