THE TWO-UP CASES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2250, 12 March 1921, Page 3

THE TWO-UP CASES

TARGET RESERVE A PUBLIC PLACE. PLAYERS CONVICTED. FINED £5 EACH.

At the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., delivered judgment in the two-up eases, the evidence in connection with which was heard at the last local sitting, and legal argument on the question of what constituted a public place within the meaning of the Gaining Act, was heard at Palmerston North last week. When the case came on for hearing last Court; day there were 35 men charged, and the police afterwards withdrew the charges against five of these, as they had not been seen actually playing the game. Judgment in the other thirty cases was reserved pending legal argument. At the Court yesterday morning the police asked that the charges against Clarence Coley and Robert Colev lie also withdrawn, as although they were present when the raid was made they were not actually playing. These two cases were withdrawn accordingly.

The Magistrate said that the place where the game was played was a public place within the definition of the Supreme Court in a judg-. ment given in a similar case, and the defendants must therefore he convicted. The Gaming Act made provision for a fine of £SO or three months imprisonment for cases of this kind, which showed that the authorities looked upon the charge as a fairly serious one. He did not intend to do anything as drastic as that, but the fines would have to he substantial. Each defendant would be convicted and fined £5, with costs7s.