TATTERSALL’S TICKETS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22612, 2 July 1935, Page 10

TATTERSALL’S TICKETS

LEGALITY OF PURCHASING IMPORTANT TEST CASE ISSUE 'BEFORE FULL COURT (Pee United Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 1. The Full Court is hearing to-day argument on an appeal by Vivian Simeon Jacobs, of Dunedin, tobacconist, from the conviction imposed on him by Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., at Dunedin, on April 29,1935, on an information that he did sell to Ernest John Cummings a ticket in a Tattersall’s sweep lottery, or a scheme established in Hobart, Tasmania, by which prizes of money are drawn for by mode of chance. Upon that conviction the appellant was fined £7 10s and costs (£2 12s). In view of the importance of the appeal and the widespread interest in New Zealand in TattersalTs sweep evidence on the appeal was taken before Mr Justice Kennedy at Dunedin, and the case was removed to- Wellington for argument before the Full Court.

Mr J. S. Sinclair and Mr J. G. Warrington, Dunedin, are appearing for the appellant and the Solicitor-general (Mr H. H. Cornish, K.C-) for the respondent, Detective Sergeant Doyle, who laid the information.

Mr Sinclair said that the appellant was a tobacconist in Dunedin, who had been approached by a police constable named Cummings, who wanted to invest in a TattersalTs sweep. The court would have to decide two important questions— (1) whether it was lawful or otherwise for a person who was desirous of obtaining a ticket in Tattersall’s to remit money himself direct to Tasmania; and (2) if he did not send it himself, was it lawful for him to send it through a third party? Learned counsel submitted that the appellant did not sell a ticket in a lottery to Cummings, and also that the appellant was not an agent for the proprietor of the lottery. All that the appellant had done was to receive the constable’s money and remit it to Tasmania with the request for a ticket to be sent to the constable at a given address. For this service the appellant received a commission from the person desiring the ticket for which commission he was not bound to account to TattersalTs.

At this stage Mr Justice Blair asked whether it-was possible to remit moneys to TattersalTs in Tasmania.

Mr Sinclair replied that names were circulated by Tattersall’s to which it was possible to send money with the knowledge that it would then be handed on to Tattersall’s. The Post Office refused to deliver letters to Tattersall’s, and in certain cases to certain addresses, which had become notorious to them as' receiving places for applications for a Tattersall’s ticket. He contended that if it was lawful for a New Zealander to purchase a ticket in Tasmania when over there it must also be lawful for him to send to Tasmania from New Zealand for a ticket, and also for him to get someone else to do it on his behklf. It was not competent for the Legislature in New Zealand to make it an offence in New Zealand to sell or purchase a ticket in Tasmania. If these submissions were correct the third question would arise whether it was • unlawful for a person who acted as an agenb for one desirous of obtaining a ticket to' send moneys to Tasmin. He submitted that it was not, and said that the main reason why the Legislature had failed in its attempt to prevent large sums of money being sent annually to Tasmania was because it had failed to prohibit it in so many words. The steps which it had taken were not direct, and had failed to achieve the desired end. In fact, although the Post Office could refuse to deliver letters to Tatteraall’e, it did not even have power to confiscate them.

Mr Sinclair submitted furthermore that it was open to the New Zealand Parliament to have prevented by direct legislation any dealings whatsoever in New Zealand in lotteries operated or conducted outside New Zealand, but Parliament had not done this. He completed his address. late this afternoon, and was followed for , a short while by the Solicitor-general. The court then adjourned till tomorrow.