REVOLVER IN A BAG

Otago Witness, Issue 3617, 10 July 1923, Page 53

REVOLVER IN A BAG

ALONG WITH MUCH GOLD. FOUND IN GREY STREET RAID. A five-chambered .30 calibre revolver was found in a. handbag by Senior-detective Cummings when he and Senior-detective Ward raided Grey street premises on tho night of May 19, in search of opium (reports the Auckland Star). Hundreds of sovereigns lined the bag, which was locked when Detective Cummings found it in the bedroom of a complacent Celestial, Wong Chuck, alias An Chuck. The revolver was pocketed by the detective, who produced it in the Police Court on Thursday morning, when Chuck was charged with being in possession of an unregistered firearm. The Chinaman’s defence was that he had got the weapon from an ex-policeman named Cotterill. “Before him go to war him stayed three days and three nights with me. Him give me the revolver and say all right, can keep it. Him great friend mine. I tink all right cause him a policeman!” smilingly stated Chuck. “Didn’t you carry this round with you when you got the bank money for pakapoo?” asked Senior-detective Cummings. “No! Leave in bag all time,” replied Chuck. “Yes. but you had the money in the bag. How 1 much?” “Me don’t know,” said Chuck. “Didn't count.” *■ “A thousand?” pressed the detective. “Don’t know !” “£500?” “Och! (disgustedly), “That’s got nothin’ to go with* this case, eh?” “All right, but there was a good deal of gold there,” returned Detective Cummings. “And you were fined £4O for giving tho alarm at a police raid on a gambling house you were connected with?” “Oh, me fined and pay 20s in the £ all right, but me not do it. Innocent all the same —evidence six to one against me!” That- the nolice regarded possession of firearms by Chinese as a very serious matter was Detective Cummings’s statement in closing the case. Nobody should have a revolver —not an unregistered one at all events —said Mr Povnton, S.M. There was always the possibility and the incentive to murder and bloodshed if members of the community were allowed to carry firearms promiscuously. Of 9000 murders in one year in the United States, 8000 were done with revolvers. It was a serious matter. Chuck was fined £5, with costs 11s.