SLY-GROG CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 975, 22 August 1903, Page 2

SLY-GROG CASE.

STRICTURES BY. THE CHIEF, JUSTICE.

(Per Press Association.) \ DUNEDIN, last, night,. In dismissing the application for a writ of prohibition restraining Mr McCarthy from sitting at Gore to hear cases of alleged sly-grog selling! the Chief Justice said that there Was not the slightest ground for the suggestion that the Stipendiary, Magistrate was Massed. It looked like an attempt on the part of Jas. Holland to select his own Magistrate. .There would ho nothing like justice in the colony, if such a thing were listened to for ’a moment.

HEARING OF THE CASE,

(Per Press Association.) Invercargill, la3t night,

The Chief Justice having declined a writ to prohibit Mr McCarthy, S.M., sitting on the Gore illegal liquor selling charges, the cases proceeded this afternoon.

After evidence against Jame 3 Holland and his barmaid, Miss McCarthy, had proceeded, Mr Neave said that Holland would plead guilty. Miss McCarthy’s name was withdrawn from this and a further similar charge. The Magistrate said that at the hearing of the Fortrose case, when he said he would in futuro cases order imprisonment without the option, neither prosecution nor defence had mentioned the Act of 1895. He had looked into the matter, and altered his view. Holland would bo fined £SO on the first informa-

tion, and convicted and discharged on the second.

People who were in the hotel were fined 40s each.

A billiard tablekeeper in the same house was charged with selling beer. He said it had been the custom in Gore for 15 years to keep beor to treat billiard players, and the liquor was in the room for that purpose only. The Magistrate said there were doubts, and defendant would get the benefit of them, The cases were dismissed.