SECTION SELLING ON SUNDAY.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1925, Page 3

SECTION SELLING ON SUNDAY.

land agent in court. WELLINGTON, April 4. A most unusual and interesting point was raised before Air C. It. Orr-Walker. E.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when a land agent named James Francis Egan, was charged with working at his calling on Sunday in view of a public place. The facts of the case, as outlined by Sub-Inspector Hollis, showed that defendant was employed at the Dominion and Investment Company. An advertisement was placed in the paper by the company, which stated that prospective buyers would lie conveyed to properties at “any old time,’’ Sunday included.

This, coining under the notice of the police, resulted in Constables Morrison iiml Ambrose' getting into touch with accused for the purpose of buying n section. On the Sunday in question it was arranged that they should bo driven out to the place by an officer or the company. Dero adapt) admitted that he was the salesman who drove _ . them out in a. ear for the purpose ol X making a sale. It was maintained that defendant was working at liis calling although no purchase was made. WHAT CAN! A MAN DO U. SUNDAY? <‘j hesitate to call the charge an absurd one, although I am tempted to do so,” observed Mr D. I’erry, who ap- - J,eaie<l for Egon. Ae.ording to the sub-inspector's interpretation of the Aet, he would he held responsible for working if on a Sunday morning he A met a. client in the street and advised ** him on some matter,. The various prosecutions so far laid under this Act Imd related to manual labour, which affected the, sus.cptibilities of religious people on their way to church. They had to decide what a man could or could not do on a Sunday. While they might reach a decision through a. form of reduetio ad absurdum, it was submitted the present case was not an offence. The object of the statute was to prevent the carrying on of manual labour in view of a public place on a Sunday, such as keeping open shops for sale or purchase. Who could possibly' tell that the defendant was engaged in selling? There was nothing to show that he had even taken y-f steps to sell anything contrary to the provisions of the Act. It was a genoral practice, he thought, for a land agent to take his clients out on a Sunday. Tlio defendant certainly did not know he was risking prosecution, and no one had been harmed. The magistrate: No one bought the section. .(Laughter.) Decision was reserved, no evidence being called by either side.