SLY-GROG.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1921, Page 7

SLY-GROG.

CONVECTION AGAINST STOREKEEPER. A MOKAU CASE. A conviction for unlawfully keeping liquor for sale at Mokau, a proclaimed area, was recorded against Sydney N. Fincham, storekeeper, in the New Plymouth Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning. He was fined £5, and ordered to pay costs and expenses totalling £4 IGs Bd. The rasp was heard on Thursday, Mr. Mowlem, S.M., reserving decision. ing judgment yesterday he remarked , that there Were one or two salient features of the ease which deserved consideration, and one was the fact that the accused was a storekeeper —an ordinary trader. This had a considerable bearing on the question. The next, fact was that accused admitted that he kept the liquor, or the major part of it, in liis general store. The third issue related to the quantity of liquor. It had been proved that accused had secured 12 bottles of whisky on June 30, 6 bottles on July 15, and another dozen on August 6, making 30 bottles in the period from June 30 to August 6. Up to September 12, the date of the police enquiry this was a period of 74 days during which the liquor was procured. On the latter date six bottles were produced from the store and a bottle and a half from the private dwelling; there were also two bottles owing to Fincham as the result of a loan to a friend. This meant that there were ten bottles accounted foi out of the thirty. Twenty bottles had been used, and the cost would be anything in the region of £l4. Remarking on the purchases of liquor His Worship pointed out that Fincham procured twelve bottles on June 30. The Court was entitled to draw the presumption from the evidence that he had disposed of most of this before he gave the second order for six bottles on July 15. Gn the same inference he got rid of the whole 18 bottles between June 30 and August 6, when he ordered another twelve bottles. “Defendant is a trader,” said His Worship. “I presume he is in the business for the purpose of making a success of it. I don’t suppose that he is a charitable institution. The fact of the matter is that the law throws upon him the duty of showing what he has done with this liquor. I can’t say I am satisfied that he has satisfactorily discharged the onus of proof that the law throws upon him. Therefore he must be convicted.”