TROUBLE IN THE HOTEL BUSINESS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVIIII, Issue 12123, 2 March 1896, Page 2

TROUBLE IN THE HOTEL BUSINESS.

MASTERTON HOTELKEEPERS CONVICTED. MASTERTON TIMES THREATENED WITH LIBEL ACTION. (Pbb Press Absooiation.) Wellington, February 29. Fur some tiino past) there has been a good dtoil of fiction for the hotel business in Masterton, and quite recently Tusker, the landlord of oae hotel, was lined for Sunday trading, against which an appeal was made. The ohief witnesses were Mr Fitzsimmons and son, while some of the witnesses showed a remarkable absence of memory, Phillips, another landlord, was a'so fined for a similar offence, und as in the former case the fino was incretsed to enable the defendant to appeal, Mr Mtzsiinmaa'a eoo, wno was a wit ness in the first case, was a day or two ago along with another lad oamod TTrquhart, arrested, und to-day charged 'with stealing plums from the premises of J. Tucker, convicted and discharged. The defence was an extraordinary one. A suggestion that the police and Tucker had employed a third party to' d-:coy the accused in the girden of Tucker led to a good deal of controversy. A libel action by several of the publicans ngaiDßt the Musterbn Times, arising out of certain comments on the manner of conducting theit houses, is still ponding.