Page 1 Advertisements Column 2

Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1929, Page 1

S.S. GAEL Leaves Wellington to-mor-row (Tuesday) EVENING for Hokitika. They staged a mock trial at a Central Otago township recently. The prisoner was Tobacco. There was a judge and jury and a large attendance of the public. Many witnesses were called, and Counsel having addressed the Court, the Judge summed up. He said accused (represented by a well-known, local resident) had hosts of friends and many enemies. He vlas accused of being a poison'er. But when tobacco poisoned people it was their own fault—they smoked the wrong kind. Imported tobacco was mostly full of nicotine and therefore highly injurious. Happily, however, there were other kinds —those produced in New Zealand, for example, by the famous National Tobacco Co., the pioneers of the tobacco industry in the Dominion. The question for the jury was: “Is tobacco guilty or not guilty of poisoning?” The verdict was; “Not guilty so far as the National Tobacco Company’s tobacco is concerned, because it is toasted (as no other tobacco is) and quite innocuous.” The Company’s “Riverhead Gold,” “Cavendish,” “Navy Cut” and “Cut Plug No. 10” are all toasted.—Advt.