WHOLESALE SLY-GROG SELLING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIV, Issue 853, 12 July 1906, Page 21

WHOLESALE SLY-GROG SELLING.

In the local Police Court last week, a young man named Thomas Wilson pleaded guilty before Mr. C. C. Kettle, S.M., to a charge of having unlawfully sold beer upon his premises in Hobson-street. The case presented some unusual features, Mr. Sharpies, solicitor for the defendant, statng that in consequence of the charge preying upon his mind Wilson became insane. He was committed to Avondale Asylum, but recovered quickly 5 he was discharged yesterday and took the first opportuniy of answering the charge. Wilson had got into the hands of money lenders, and when he was in financial difficulties he was told that a good way to make money easily and redeem his position was to go into slygrog selling. Sub-Inspector Gordon, who conducted the prosecution, stated that Wilson carried on what he would describe as a “semi-boardinghouse” at 124, Hobson-street. For a considerable time he had been doing an illicit trade in liquor on Saturday nights and Sundays, and the place was the resort of the worst characters. Sergeant Hanson, who raided the house with several constables on . the morning of Sunday, May 27, described what he saw. In a bedroom on the second storey there was a cask containing beer, and a stone jar which contained spirits. They found three bottles of ale in a ground floor bedroom, also a bottle of brandy and a stone jar which had been emptied of liquor. Empty bottles and tumblers were to be found all over the premises. In addition to the prisoner and his brother, the police found 21 men, three women and five children in the building. Fifteen or sixteen men were congregated in a small sitting-room on the second floor, and in an adjoining closet, which was locked, they discovered two other men. Three men were very drunk, and a number of others were considerably under the influence of liquor. Some of the people claimed to be boarders, and most of the remainder said they came in to see the “boss.” “You carried on this business deliberately, and you have no excuse whatever to offer,” declared Mr. Kettle to the prisoner. His Worship went on to say that Wilson deliberately went into the business, knowing there was a liability to a heavy fine. If there were mtigating circumstances a magstrate had power to reduce the fine of £5O provided as a punish ment for a first offence, but he could not do so in the present case, and the

full fine of £5O would be inflicted. In default of distress, the alternative was fixed at three months’ imprisonment. Mr. Kettle suggested that the police should, if possible, ascertain who supplied Wilson with the liquor, and that the matter should be reported to the Licensing Committee. He expressed the opinon that wholesale dealers ought to have known, from the size of the order, that an illicit trade in liquor was going on.