POLICE AND BOOKMAKER'

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1645, 11 January 1913, Page 4

POLICE AND BOOKMAKER'

The public, as simple folk unacquainted with the subtleties of the law may bo, excused, if-they, find it tsomewhat difficult to follow some of the views expressed by learned counsel and the presiding Magistrate at the prosecution of 'the bookmakeir Young ! .'in the Magistrate's Court yesterday. The general impression of tho- reputable citizen is that tho police are entitled to take any reasonable steps to ensure, the "conviction of a known offender against the law. Most pebplo ' indeed v are inclined to blame the. polico foroverpuhctiliousness at times in the fatter of attending to legal formalities and technicalities .which, play into the hands of those they are seeking to bring to account, and'especially is this the, case in dealing' with tho bookmaking-'fratemity.' 'These gentry are quite familiar with the law—-usually, they ■ have : the very ;best legal advice—and are well up in all the tricks and dodges' to escap6' detection in tho carrying oh of their illegal business. They'are parasites living on the public, and the law specially provides Jieavy '"penalties with a view to stamping them out of existence, ; Experience- ,hasi shown that it is very _ difficult to secure the necessary evidence to warrant convictions against these bookmakers; and yet everyone knows that they are carrying on their business in the cities all over the Dominion, and by tho facilities they offer for betting every day in the. Week and every week in the year,.are doing infinitely harm, with the younger generation than the totalisator is ever likely to do. And when tho polico do bring one of these persons to book, the treatment the guardians of the law receive at the hands of the Court is sometimes,,far from encouraging. In tho case under discussion, a constable,>as'sent' in plain clothes to bet with a suspected bookmaker' named Young. In reply to a question by YouNGtho constable told him ho was a stranger here—which was not a fact—and the* wager was then made. One may dislike tho necessity imposed on the constable of misleading, tho bookmaker as jtb his term of residenoe here; but was it, after all, in the circumstances, a heinous offence 1 Very few people, we venture to think, will regard it as such. After the wager was made, and with the knowledge that it had been made to guide him', Detective Cassells obtained a warrant for the arrest of Young,, for breaking tho law.: As the result of tho arrest, certain papers and documents were found on Young which secure his conviction. Here again, strango to say, protest was made by the presiding Magistrate against the arrest of tho accused. Tho Court apparently held that the man Bhould have been proceeded against on summons. And yetif that course had been taken there is no guarantee that thero would have been a Conviction. It was part.of-'fche.policy of tho police, as stated in evidence, to catch the man with the proof of his guilt on him; and if they proceeded by summons this Would not bo possible. Surely Detective Cassells took what in the circumstances everyone must see was tho only reasonable and common-sense oourso. It is quite true that warrants for arrest should be sparingly used, as stated by Mr. Myers, counsel for tho defondant, but the case under review was one of the exceptions. Wo refer to this matter not so much because tho particular ca-sc concerned is one of any special importance, as for the reason t that it seems to us unfair to the polico that thoy should havo been singled out for tho disparaging and discouraging comments mentioned. Also, in part, because wo have freely complained in tho past of the failuro of the police ! to make it unprofitable for tho bookmakers to.continu'o to defy the lav/. Detective Cabbells has provod him-

self a very able and energetic officer in other directions, and we have no doubt if properly supported he will go a long way towards ridding this oommunity of the evil of the law-breaking bookmaker- and his touts and hangers-on.