A SPLIT NOTE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 75, 1 July 1916, Page 8

A SPLIT NOTE.

YOUNG MAN GETS THREE YEARS Before Judge Bevan, at Orange (N.S.W.), General Sessions last week, Cecil Wilson, a young man, was charged with having falsely pretended to A. Young, licensee of the Carrington Club Hotel, that a mutilated Commonwealth live pound note was a genuine note. f The evidence of the police was that Wilson tendered Young the front portion of a live pound note that had been split. , Mr Hardwick, barrister, for the defence, contended that the hack portion of the note was no material part of the 7)ote, and that the front portion contained the promise to pay, and thorp was nothing in the Act to say that the note must have a printed hack. The Treasury had paid notes minus hacks.

J. R. Collins, assistant-secretary to the Treasury, said ho controlled the note issue of Australia. The Commonwealth note consisted of one part, a front and a /jack, and neither the front nor the hack separately were of value. There were five prints on the front of the note and two on ttic back. The two prints on the hack were of as much importance to the authorities as the live on the front. The Commonwealth did not issue notes printed on one side only. A mutilated note might he paid as an act of gi'ace. He had not known of a split note being paid by the Treasury. The judge held that the mutilated note in qiiestion was not a genuine Australian note, and -after evidence, accused was found guilty. In sentencing Wilson to three years in Goulburn gaol, Judge Bevan said that the crime was a serious one, and affected the currency of the Commonwealth, and accused’s action might induce others to 'attempt similar offenI ces. I =— —