DISPUTED CHEQUE

Hokitika Guardian, 21 June 1932, Page 2

DISPUTED CHEQUE

A GAME OF CARDS

SYDNEY, June 11

A peculiarly ghastly little dispute como before the District Court this week, in collection with a game of ■ cards. One Saturday night in March last at Annnndale four ’ friends, two men and two women, sat down to n game of poker, The game lasted some time but half an hour after one of the men had thrown in In's last hand, he was dead,. A sudden seizure, a hurried call for doctor and ambulance, the rush to tlio hospital—and the end. But the* game was not yet finished, for this week the surviving man sued his friend’s widow for £l4, due on a cheque of which payment had been stopped. The man claimed that lus dead friend, Mr Levy, had asked him to cash a cheque signed by Mrs Levy, to let him have ready money before the game began. The widow maintained that her husband had given the cheque on account of liability incurred at the card table, and she sought protection on the ground that payment of a gambling debt cannot be enforced by law. The l Court found for the plaintiff for the full amount claimed; but the whole episode seems to be singularly grotesque and sordid. If peop'e will play for money, and if they indulge like these “friends” in “4s and 8s rises,” they might at least leave the final division of the spoil to Death.