The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1910. THE CASE OF DANTE GAMONOSI.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 23 March 1910, Page 2

The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1910. THE CASE OF DANTE GAMONOSI.

A cask under the Licensing Laws, recently Ward in Wellington, seems tn indicate that the way of the transgressor against laws of this description is peculiarly hard. The incidunt is well described in the account, subjoined: — "After having been in the habit of taking a demijohn of beer to his home at Worser Bay in pn.st years without the law's interference, a fisherman named Dante Gamonosi was Surprised when the police laid ail information against him for doing so one day recently. Ho appeared in the Magistrate's Court to-day charged with taking liquor into a no-license district without giving written notification to the person who supplied him with it that it was to be taken into a prohibition area. "Defendant pleaded guilty. "it was stated by Sub-Inspec-tor Norwood that defendant was apprehended by Constable Taylor while driving home in his cart. He had covered up the demijohns of beer which had been procured from J. Crabtree, barman at the Empire Hotel. "Defendant pleaded ignorance of the law. "Mr W. G. Riddel I, S.M.Don't you know that Newtown is now a prohibition district P -Yes. "Well, you had better buy a copy of the Licensing Act. It won't cost you much. "Defendant was convicted and a fine of 40s was inflicted, with costs 155." That >a. foreign or naturalised resident on our shores should be mulct in this maanier is hard enough. Wrapped up in his studies of sea currents and .the habits of the

liapuka, besides ■ investigating the comings'and goings of the warehou, the, poet fisherman of Worser Bay had taken no cognisance of the law's twistings and local option's turnings. Doubtless he had heard casual mention of the fact that every public house in South "Wellington had been closed doubtless, also, he shrugged his shoulders, drove on a little further with his fish cart and his demijohn, and had th'j latter receptnblo filled at a. hotel so 110*1 r Newt-own tlnt.no one could tell it was outside of that droughty district unless bo bad an electoral map under his observation. The gentle fisherman with the poetical prefix is recognising, now, that the path of progress is strewn with .sorrowing sufferers, an! that the Quenching of alcoholic thirsts in No-License districts is ft harder matter, in some isolated instances, than non-observant people .ire inclined to think. True it is that in Masterton and Eketahuna there is less total abstinence than some prejudiced advocates of NV Licen.se would have us believe, and it is asserted that in any No-License district throughout New Zealamd liquor may be obtained by "approved consumers" without the formality of making declarations required by the Licensing Act. These convoi iencos, if they do exist, are for those who know the password, and meanwhile Dante Gamonosi. must go dry a-fishing or in the alternative spend a lot of time iin studying the law and practising name writing, which he might spend, with more profit to himself, in the gentle art of catching flounders.