CANTEEN SCANDALS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13392, 28 May 1914, Page 3

CANTEEN SCANDALS.

"CADGING ORDERS FOR BEER." OFFICER SENT TO CRETE. (Press Assn.— By Telegraph— Copyright.) (Received May 28, 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, May 27. Whitaker and Minto have been found guilty m connection with the canteen scandals. Whitaker, m his defence, said that i no favor was shown to Lipton's. The only money received by him was m compensation for a visit to Crete. He rfead a letter from Colonel Fienries,* representing a firm of Maidstone brewers, offering him a free trip, and asking ing him to uso his influence with a colonel m Crete on behalf of their beer. Judge Darling, m summing up, said it wns regrettable tliat Fiennes, now Baron of - Saye and Sele, Whose ancestor put. his hand to the Magna Charta, sh-euld have written such a letter. Whitaker, m broken accents, said he was not aWare he was , doing wrong. At the instance of the. gentleman named he did it, because he was m need of money, having two. sOhs. at Sandhurst. He threw himself on the judge's mercy. Judge Darling, animadverting on the letter, sternly commented on -the decadence shown by the -representative of 'a gre&t family m cadging ordiers for beer. Whitaker was sentenced^ to six months' imprisonment./ The other military accused were bound over. V Minto and Cansfeld were, fined £500 each, Craig £100, Laing, .Own, . Pegley, and Lynch £50. Swain was bound oveY. • Whitaker made a second appeal for clemency, but the judge ordered his removal. The present Baron (who was Colonel Geoffrey Cecil Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes) is 22nd m descent from Geoffrey de Save, who opposed King John, and was one of the twenty-five Barons entrusted with enforcement of the Magna Charta-. ■'