THE COURTS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16429, 24 January 1919, Page 4

THE COURTS.

4 MAGISTERIAL. (Before Mr S. 12. McCarthy, • DRUNKENNESS. A first . offender was fined as, in default 0-1 hours' imprisonment. REMANDED. Florence Groom (Mr Malley) appeared on remand from Wellington on a charge of having Btolen, at Christchurch, goods to the value of £30, tho property of Elizabeth Hayes. She wpa remanded until to-day week. CIVIL BUSINESS. In each of the following cases judgment for tho amounts claimed, with costs, was given for the plaintiff by default:—Emily Dunham v. Mrs Rose Killick, £3 Ins; the Public Trustee v. Huston Curlett, £63 6s; Hearfield and Walker, l.<td. v. Arthur Bartlett, £3 10s; Massey-llarris Co., Ltd. v. W. A. Coldstream, i'J 17s 7d. William V. Whitta (Mr Alpcrs) claimed from George L. Ostler and It. S. Ostler (Mr Johnston) tho sum of £1 4s, balance of rent alloged to l>c due. Judgment was given for the defendants with costs. Reserved judgment was given in the case of the Inspector of Awards v. William Burgess (Mr Johnston), in which the plaintiff claimed £10 in respect of each of two alleged breaches of the North Canterbury Threshing Milta- award. Tho first allegation was that tho defendant had employed a youth under the age of 18 years as a threshing mill hand,, and the second alleged breach was that the youth, having left defendant's employ before the end of the threshing season, the defendant deducted tho Bum of 25s from his wages for food and coal, use of galley, cooking utensils, etc., instead of £1 0s 2d, as provided by the award. The fact that the youth looked over 18 years of ago was, Mr McCarthy held, immaterial, and employers who contravened a rule, however innocently, did so at the-ir peril. With rogard to the sccond allegation, the Magistrate remarked that employers had charged more .than the amount permitted in tho award,' owing to the increased cost of living. Higher wages had been paid, and the youth in this cast! had accepted the higher rate and had raised no objection to the increased charge for rations. However, no employer or employee could so contract out of an award. Defendant would be fined £2 and costs on the first charge, and 10s and costs on the second.

A LICENSING DECISION. (rnE3S ASSOCIATION TELEGRAiI.) BLENHEIM, January 23. Ari important decision affecting hotelkeepers was given by Mr Evans, S.M., to*day. Xlio licensee of the Mahakipawa Hotel was charged with keeping open his premises for the sale of intoxicating liquoi after ~6 o'clock. A lodger and thres other persons entered the hotel at 9 o'clock, and asked for drinks. The licensee supplied soft drinks, exposing the liquors in the bar. The Magistrate was satisfied with the bona fides of the licensee, and convicted the three persons for being unlawfully on licensed premises, holding that ihey had gone in for the p'lrpose of trying .to obtain intoxicants, and their entry was illegal. He dismissed the information against the licensee, holding that leaving the Bide door open was not a "breach of the Act, and that the exposure of liquor in the bar or the sale of soft drinks was not, in the circumstances, exposure for the sale 01 intoxicants. The presumption that any perj son could have bought intoxicants was I regatived by the evidence.