SETS WITH CONSTABLE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 49, Issue 15048, 29 November 1923, Page 5

SETS WITH CONSTABLE.

BOOKMAKER FINED.

{By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. In the Magistrate’s Court to-day, jPercy Ross was charged on three counts .."with having entered into bets with Conratable Atkins on the result of races at _®iccarton and Addington. Chief-Detective Cameron said the dejHefendant was a barman. The constable gone to him and made bets under instructions. % “Almost every time I pick up a .newspaper,” said the Magistrate, Mr Wyvern Wilson, “I see something about what the bookmakers are doing. If .-sporting writers can obtain this infor..znation, surely the police can.” Mr C. Thomas (who appeared for the • Hefence) said that Ross had been temp- . died to take on bookmaking, but he was .mot shrewd enough. He had taken bets with people who were absolute strangers So him. It was the first offence that Jloss had committed. The Magistrate said that, it was a ■difficult thing to know what to do with , :±he bookmaker. Bookmaking led to Haziness and impurity in racing sport, _-and thus it had been declared illegal. JEt was sought that the money should .3)6 put on a machine which could not „get at riders or dope horses. . “It is quite notorious,” said the /Magistrate, “that there is a large ambetting on races otherwise than .valßugh the totalisator, and it seems to public countenance. It seems -to be a matter of common knowledge, .and nobody seems to think it should .-atop. Very few cases in Court are directed towards the suppression of the /bookmaker. When a man is brought up ■on such an infrequent charge and it is ./his first offence, I do not think that it iis a case for imprisonment. Defendant iis fined £lO on each of the three charges. This amount will be payable at ’-.ihe rate of £2 10s per week.”