TREATING CASES

Otago Witness, Issue 3291, 11 April 1917, Page 5

TREATING CASES

FINE OF £5 IMPOSED. At the City Police Court on the 4th, Mr H. A. Young, S.M., heard tlirco informations against different persons of treating. The first person charged was William Henry tSimkin, who was charged that, on Deoember 16, 1916, at Dunedin, he committed an act which amounted to treating in that he offered to pay for intoxicating liquor, at the Caledonian Hotel, for John Palmer, contrary to the regulations made under "The War Regulations Amendment Act, 1916." Defendant did not appear, and, after hearing evidence by Sergeant Thomson, the magistrate imposed a hue of £5, with costs (15sJ. Catherine Treston was charged that, on February 20, at Dunedin, being a bar attendant at the Crown Hotel, she did permit an offence against the War Regulations Amendment Act, and, further, that she did receive payment for intoxicating liquor in respect of which an offence against tile regulations had been committed. Mr A. 0. Hanlon appeared for the defendant, who pleaded not guilty. Sub-inspector Mathieson prosecuted. Frederick Dickson, painter, Core, stated that at 2 p.m. on the 20th of February last he met a lady friend named Mra Cameron, who introduced him to a Mrs Henniiig. Mrs Cameron mentioned about them going to the Crown Hotel. They • went to a room there, and witncs« "shouted." The drinks were supplied by the defendant. lie put a half-crown pieoa on the tray. He "shouted" another round. At this stage two other ladies came in, and Mrs Cameron introduced them as a Mrs O'Connor and (he thought) a Miss Morgan. Mrs O'Connor asked tiiem to have a , drink with her. Witness then "shouted" | again. He eventually went to/Mrs O'Connor's house at her invitation. Something, he said, occurred there which caused him to make a complaint to the police. Witness was sober. Mrs O'Connor looked to have had drink, but all the others were sober. Cross-examined: He came here for the races. He would contradict anybody who said he had been on a drinking bout. J With some reluctance witness admitted that he was married. He was sober when he J went to Mrs O'Connor's. He accused her of robbing him. Ho took a bottle of whisky there, but never had a drink out of it. He bought it at Collins's Hotel, after leaving the Crown Hotel. He lost a pound not© in tho house out of his vest pocket.— Catherine Henning said she went into the hotel by herself and called for a drink. Dickson- and Mrs Cameron fallowed. She did not hear them call for a drink. Wife, ncss paid for her own drink. She remembered seeing Mrs O'Connor paying for her t own drink. —Mr Hanlon submitted that i tho 'case should be dismissed. It would bo outrageous to convict the defendant oil tho I unsupported evidence of Dickson, whoso | story was. grotesquely absurd. They had ! the' evidence of Mrs Henning, who said ! that Dickson was lying.—His Worship hold that there was a reasonable cause for susj picion, and Mr Hanlon then called the dei fendant, who said that she heard tho bell | ring and went to the room.. There was a sixpence in front of Mrs Cameron. Tho other woman tendered a half-crown in payment of her drink. Dickson called for a whisky, and mentioned that he would pay for the drinks, whereupon witness told him that shouting was not permitted. He then ■ threw a two-shilling piece on the tray and I received Is 6d in change. Subsequently Mrs O'Connor and a young woman camo in, and the former had a drink.—His Worship said that from what he knew of Dickson and from his demeanour in the box ho was not prepared to say that what ho had said was true. The burden of reasonable suspicion cast on the defendant had been discharged, and the information would bo dismissed. Tho charge against William John Coughlan, the licensee, of "permitins? and selling, was also dismissed accordingly. ->,