BOOKMAKER FINED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2896, 13 June 1925, Page 3

BOOKMAKER FINED.

Ilawera, June 12. In the Magistrate’s Court, David Arthur Anderson pleaded guilty to a charge of book-making, Mi. O’Dea, for the defendant, said nin-ety-nine out of one hundred would not convict for book-making. The community did not think it wrong. The present system allowed gamb-

ling. Mr. Land: Book-making is allowed in some Australian States and he asked if that were worse than the present hole-and-corner business in New Zealand.

The Magistrate (Mr. Barton) said only a few years ago, bookmaking had been prohibited in this country and the totalisator brought into use to satisfy a public desire. The book-makers did not assist, but continued their work against the law. The Magistrates strongly condemned the operatioin of bookmakers, declaring it brought into being bribery and vice. Even a public service, that should lie clean, was debauched and made dirty by book-makers, who broke the law and found means of escaping punishment. The position, he considered, would continue to get so bad that in the end legislators would have to make a clean-up. He agreed the defendant could have gone to the Supreme Court, but he would have gone not with the knowledge that the police could not prove their case, but hoping that the jurymen would be false to their oaths and not convict. A fine of £IOO was imposed. The Magistrate asked that the circumstances be reported to the Licensing Committee.