AN OUTSPOKEN MAGISTRATE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3704, 25 August 1906, Page 2

AN OUTSPOKEN MAGISTRATE.

Mr Bishop, S.M., at Christchurch, in sentencing bookmakers for trespassing and crying the odds at the recent Grand National Meeting, said : “ There is no more disagreeable and unpleasant duty that I have to perform than in dealing with this class of case. I do not think I put it too strongly when I say I absolutely loathe it. I am so constituted individually perhaps that these cases particularly affect me. It has passed, so far as my judgment is concerned, far beyond the stage of being a question merely of between the totalisator and the Jockey Club and the bookmaker, With me it is simply a question as to how far this class of people deliberately defy the statute law of the colony. It is intensely unpleasant for me to have to deal with these men, because I feel —although I don’t as a rule mention matters from this bench that may be contentious—that so long as the State encourages gambling in the form

of the totalisator, so long will every conscientious man inMlifr' community have to ask hirasdf whether he is not placed in a difficult position when (Sealing with matters resulting from the legalised gambling machine. It is difficult indeed for a man in my position to say what is in me in regard to this question. I feel very strongly upon it, and I think there are hundreds of others of similar capacity to myself, who could express themselves more strongly. But so long as this is State exercised, I do not think I have the right to express any opinion on the general question, other than applies to the particular case. It is not part of my duty to question the propriety of the State in doing this; I hold my opinion as an individual and occasionally express it, but so long as our legislators think it is a fit and proper thing, I and others have simply to bow to the inevitable. I am utterly unable to bring myself to believe that it is part of my duty to consider the totalisator in cases where there is deliberate and persistent breach of the law. Ido not like the position at all, but I cannot go back upon what I have said upon previous occasions. When a man is a first offender I am very sorry indeed to send him to gaol, but when a man persistently comes before me I fail to see that I could properly be asked to deal with him differently ’ from other men who were not first offenders. In the hope that this particular man shall take heed, I shall deal leniently with him. I shall sentence him to a very short term of imprisonment, but if he comes before me again, I shall have to consider whether the sentence must not be very much more severe. If this sort of thing is not going to arouse the public conscience, I shall simply have to go on doing what I consider to be my duty. I shall sentence accused to 14 days’ imprisonment without hard labour, on each charge, the terms to run concurrently.”