ILLICIT LIQUOR SELLERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3000, 18 February 1926, Page 2

ILLICIT LIQUOR SELLERS.

SUBSTANTIAL FINES IMPOSED. Te Kuiti, Wednesday. At the Police Court to-day, Alex. Greatbateh, Louis George Greatbatch and George Arthur Burling, three young men of Oparure, a farming settlement some five miles from Te Kuiti, were charged with keeping liquor for sale. Charges of bringing unlabelled liquor into a proclaimed area, failing to give their names and addresses in writing when ordering liquor, were also preferred. The case arose from the discovering of fifteen bottles of liquor, hidden in a creek, in the bush on the racecourse, during the Te Kuiti races. The sergeant said he had had the three under observation, on suspicion, for some time. On the day of the races he saw them enter the racecourse and go towards the bush. The sergeant folowed and assisted to find fifteen bottles of liquor hidden in a creek, under several feet of water. A few days later the sergeant went to Oparure with Burling, who guided him to a hut on a Crown section in the Oparure hills, five miles

from the main road. In exercise of a search-warrant the sergeant found, in the wash-house, a 30-gal-lon copper, stacks of empty bottles, a number of fine sieves with malt adhering to them, vats of hops, sugar, glass measure and rubber-tub-ing. A small brewery as he called it! The floor had been removed and, probing, the earth under the copper, he found straw-lined chambers, containing two bottles of liquor. He had found in the hut, two recipes for making over-proof whisky. Louis Greatbateh and Burling pleaded guilty. On Louis Greatbatch being called as a witness, his brother pleaded guilty also. Their counsel pleaded for leniency on account of a previous good record. The sergeant said that in his opinion Burling was merely an unfortunate “dud” whom the Greatbatehs had used. Alex. Greatbateh was in his opinion the master mind of the three and had earned his living by dropping liquor among the Maoris. Alex. Greatbateh was fined £3O for keeping liquor for sale and £5 for being allegedly on the course. Louis Greatbateh was fined £25 for keeping liquor for sale and George Burling £ls for the same offence.