SUPREME COURT

Southland Times, Issue 18846, 11 June 1920, Page 6

SUPREME COURT

PRISONERS SENTENCED. CHIEF JUSTICE ON DRINK AND GAMBLING. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 10. In sentencing two prisoners to-day Sir Robert Stout remarked on two cases of crime, drink and gambling. Colin McKenzie, with a dozen other aliases and a record of crime covering all but his period of war service, was sentenced on a number of charges of theft, false pretences, forgery and uttering and .horse stealing, to one month's imprisonment with hard labour, on each charge, the terms to be cumulative, and was declared an habitual criminal. Prisoner’s drinking habits were the cause of the crime. James George Tracey, a Customs clerk, had pleaded guilty at Napier to a long series of thefts totalling £4,822. Counsel stated that the downfall of accused was entirely due to gambling. He handled £120,000 a year, receiving a salary of £230. In sentencing Tracey to seven y'ears’ reformative treatment, the Chief Justice said ii was an enormous sum to go in gambling. “Of course our peaple,” he’ added, “do not seem to think gambling wrong, and there is encouragement to it. I see that the revenue from the totalisator receipts at Auckland were £93,000. The same process goes on elsewhere. Nobody seems to take any interest in trying to stop gambling. Government departments ought to know who are gambling among their servants. Such things are not permitted in England or America. Gamblers go.”