" HOKONUI ” WHISKY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 108, 9 May 1934, Page 7

" HOKONUI ” WHISKY

CHARGE AGAINST FARMERS I Per Press Association, j INVERCARGILL, May 8. What, according to the Crown Prosecutor, was probably the first case of its kind to come before a common jury, occupied the attention of Air. Justice Kennedy in the Supremo Court to-day, when William Allan Alexander McCrae and his son William Robertson McCrae, both of Dunsdale,. farmers, were charged with being concerned in unlawfully making spirits. Accused pleaded not guilty. Hugh Sherwood Cordcry, collector of customs and inspector of distilleries for Southland, gave evidence that in February last he visited the locality of accuscds’ property accompanied by Sergeant Abel and Constable Nesbit, and found the illicit still in question He said that Constable Murphy found a three-gallon keg containing an ounce or two of liquor, which on being tested gave the characteristic test of “liokr nui” whisky. Witness referred to a further visit to the farm, and related that they ’had obtained the loan of a horse, which when given its head, led them into the bush. Witness mounted the horse, which took them to an old tent in the bush, roughly half a mile from the still. Sergeant Abel then took a scat on the mare, and it walked to an abandoned site 20 yards away which did not appear to have been used during the past two years or so. There was a very marked resemblance between that still and the new one. After leaving the old still the mare, with Sergeant Abel riding her, went straight to a tree by the now still, and stopped there. Senior-Sergeant Packer stated in evidence that Macßae senr. said he knew nothing of a still, and would

give £2O if one were found on his property. After further evidence on behalf of the Crown had been hoard, the hearing was adjourned till to-morrow.