LOTTERY CHARGE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 77, 24 December 1919, Page 5

LOTTERY CHARGE

CATHOLIC BAZAAR CASE BEV. FATHER SMYTHE FINED Tho practice of conducting raffles at church bazaars formed tho basis of an interesting reserved judgment delivered in the Magistrate's Conn yesterday by Mr E. Page, S.M., in the case of Police 'v. tlio Her. Kither Smythe. The information alleged a breach of section. 39 of the Gaming Act, IMS. Tho defendant conducted a bazaar in tho Town Hall, under the auspices ot the Roman Catholic Church, and ho ras responsible far the disposal of a largo number of articles by moans of a surprise packet-" scheme, tho tickets being sold at 2a. fid, each. Ticketholders were ■notified (hat they might attend the Sydney Street Schoolroom on tlio ovening of November 12, and select for each ticket held an envelope from a largo number tliero displayed. Jn every envelope had been placed a card, upon which was written the name of some article, which was to be tickctholdera prize. Tho articles varied considerably in character and value, the most valuable being a thrne-ycar-old thoroughbred filly, valued at 100 guinea'!. Every cure was taken to see that tho scheme was carried out with absolute fairness The defence was that no breach of tlio Act had been committed, because: (a) Each purchaser got some, value :or Ills, money; (b) each purchaser selected his own envelope; and (c) each transaction was really a sale of an envelope ana its unknown contents for tho sum of 2s. Cd. In holding that there had been a breach of the Act, tho Magistrate pointed out that tho substantial object of tho whole scheiiio must bo looked at in order to ascertain whether it was a lottery It appeared to him that one ot the material inducements was the possibility of winning ono of the moro valuable prizes. The fact that every purchaser of a ticket received a prize of some sort did not prevent tho scheme from being a lottery. After quoting several eases on record in support ot Mb ruling, tho Magistrate said tnat it seemed to him that the method ot distributing tho prizes was decided solely by chance, for on choosing an envelope tho purchaser could not werciso any skill or judgment. Eis selection was made, at random, and tho result ot his Kcleotion was a matter of pure chance. Eis Worship cited the, case of a missing word competition, the details of which were that in a printed paragraph o word was omitted. A considerable number of words would each grammatically and logically bo suitable to fill tho vacancy, but the word which was to win tho prize was determined fcctorohand, and it was not moro appropriate to the paragraph Hhan other words would each have been Counsel in that case had urged that to tako the case out of tho Statute there, must be an exercise of intelligence and skill, for mere volition was not enough. I hat contention had been upheld by tU? Court, which ruled that ths competition was a lottery. Coming to the question of tiie penalty, the Magistrate said it was to be noted that the funds were being collected tor a laudable object in the shape of the establishment of a school, and that tho whemo was similar i«i nature to a lar«e number of competitions and lotteries that had of late years been held for various patriotic and other purposes. ]n the Statute provision wasiniulowhereby >1 ho Minister of Internal AAwra ini"ht grant permission lor Ihe holding of certain classes of lotteries, but no such permission was in the present cuso obtained. The defendant would be lined the eiim of .£lO, and ordered to pay the co=ts of tho proceedings.