A TOTE CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3767, 1 June 1907, Page 3

A TOTE CASE.

Women Quarrel Over a Dividend. As the result of two women quarrelling over a betting transaction on the totalisator at the New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club’s racecourse, a case was heard on Thursday, before Mr H. W. Bishop, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court,Christchurch, wherein Ellen Cooke (Mr Hunt) claimed los from Hannah Penlington (Mr Cassidy) for a dividend on a 10s ticket alleged to have been given by the plaintiff to the defendant to collect.

The evidence for the plaintiff was that she had given the defendant a ticket on a horse called Thicket, which ran second in a race and paid a dividend of 10s. The plaintiff said that she saw the defendant put the ticket on the shelf of the paying-out window and saw the pay-out clerk put down a half-sovereign, and that the defendant had received for her own ticket. Afterwards the defendant stated that she had not collected a dividend for the plaintiff, and the sovereign was for her own two tickets. The defence was a denial that the plaintiff had given the defendant a ticket on which to collect a dividend. The defendant stated, and evidence was led to support her statement, that she had had two tickets on the horse Thicket, and that the Sovereign was her own. The plainliff’s ticket was on the paying-out shelf when the defendant left the window.

In giving judgment, the Magistrate expressed his astonishment that two women should take up the time ot the Court with such a trivial matter. The whole matter was astounding to him, and the only redeeming feature of the case was the statement by counsel for each side, that they had endeavoured to prevent the matter reaching the Court. It was what he expected they would have done, and he sympathised with them. Each of the principals seemed to be under the impression that she was in the right. He did not mean to say that people had no right to go to races, and indulge in betting on them. He did not expect everj'one to agree with him, but apparently things had got to this pass, that special facilities were afforded by the club for ladies to bet on the totalisator. He had heard of it before, but it had never been brought under his notice in the Court. It was the result of the betting craze. As that was so, he could only say that it was sad that things should have reached such a condition, and sadder that two married women should come into Court and recount the details of a vulgar quarrel that arose out of a strong genuine belief on each side that it was in the right. Married women could bet if they thought proper, and as the State legalised it, it was a respectable practice from a public standpoint. He would not cast reflections on either of the parties. The evidence was as strong for one as for the other, and therefore he would give judgment for defendant without costs.