CORRESPONDENCE

Poverty Bay Independent, Volume I, Issue 81, 1 December 1885, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE

INFORMATION GRATIS.

(To the Editor of the P.B. Independent.) Sir, —According to your report of the case O’Brien v Wilson, great stress appears to have been laid upon the fact that the had been guilty of the unoffence of playing billiards with a fejpw servant. It would have been well if this fellow servant (one of the stablemen) had been produced in Court, as it might possibly have turned out to have been the one. who, having by a turn of fortune become the recipient of some odd, is treated much more like a respected boarder than a servitor, in which case surely no blame could be attached to O’Brien, who would have then been simplyshowing to the player the same difference his employer does. Say however this was not the man, and that it was some unfortunate who considered himself lucky in having employment, and getting his weekly wages, what difference did it make. The proprietor of an hotel is well aware—if the Magistrate be not—that if his servants play billiards, and lose, they- have to pay, and should the Bench have not been aware of this, it should have put the question. The servant’s shilling replaced in the proprietors pocket, represents an 4 equal amount to the one received from ” the wealthiest man in Gisborne, and O’Brien, as billiard-marker, had as much right to endeavor to seenre the one as the other for his employer. Why did not the Magistrate say : “ The defendant is proprietor of a large hotel—the plaintiff simply a billiard-marker, therefore the former must be right, and the latter wrong.” This is what it means in fact.— I am &c., One of Them.