PLAYING CARDS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 101, 22 January 1921, Page 11

PLAYING CARDS

ON AND FERRY BOATS

POLICE TAKE ACTION

Card-playing, especially in radway carriages, has developed into something of a nuisance, and the police have taken steps to put a stop to it. . Yesterdav morning, in the Magistrates Court, before Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., Mossan Hampton, for whom Air- A. B. Sievwright appeared, and Charles Malin, were charged with gambling in a railway carriage while travelling between Aramoho and Stratford. Both men pleaded guilty. , Chief-Detective Ward said that, the two men were playing a friendly game of poker. The case was brought to direct public attention to the fact that it is an offence against the railway by-laws to gamble in the carriages. Defendants were each fined 265. and costs. - Three youths, Basil H. Rod, Albert E. Rod; and Herbert IT. Sullivan, were charged with playing draw poker and gambling on tho s.s. Duchess while travelling between Wellington and Day s Bay. Mr. O. Deere appeared for all three, who pleaded not guilty. Tho evidence was that the lads had been in the habit of playing cards while returning to the bay, and on January 10, and two subsequent days, a policeman travelled on the steamer <y instruction, and saw them playing. He did not see any money pass, but he notea that a record was> taken by one ot them of tho losses and winnings cf the Payers. It was stated that they said to him that they. "squared up” afterwards. The boys denied that they said they paid up. They had been playing cards on the home trip of tho steamer for six or seven weeks past. .They had "five hundred,” and when tired of that they played poker. no gambling at all, no money had passed between them, and there was no intention of paying any money. ■ They played as friends and to pass the time away it hue travelling to the bay. The Magistrate, after hearing the evidence, said he was inclined to believe the lads, and. thought that the fact that they had been put to some trouble anil expense to attend court, would perhaps make them caretui in the future, lie dismissed the informations.