COURTS AND OFFENCES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11646, 25 August 1905, Page 7

COURTS AND OFFENCES.

An Interesting Judgment.

(Per United Press Association.)

NELSON. August 25. Some' days ago George Gilbert, agent for the Retailers' 'Protection Association, was prosecuted on a charge of circulating a ['printed letter warning a debtor of being 1 posted if he did not pay his creditors, and making a final demand for payment. The charge was that the paper bore no imprint. The defence , was that it was a purely commercial paper, and not a paper within the meaning of the Act, not being dispersed or distributed in the sense of circulation, and that it was feasible for anyone to use either a typewriter or printers' type for saying time in letterwriting. In giving his reserved judgment to-day, the magistrate held that the defence was irresistible and the case was dismissed, the paper being held to be a business communication, partly written and partly printed. ~ The magistrate said that he was fully alive to the fact that in the hands of unscrupulous persons papers of the nature under review could be used to work harm, but that was a matter not for him bxit for Parliament.