"ABSENT-MINDED BEGGARS"

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 15 February 1917, Page 4

"ABSENT-MINDED BEGGARS"

OPENS HOTEL ON SUNDAY.

A most amazing story of absent, mindedness was told in the AucklaujfflPolice Court yesterday morning, when Thomas Bands, licensee of the Suffolk Hotel at Ponsonby, admitted charge? Sunday, January 28,. he opened his iiotel for the sale of liquor and exposed liquor for sale. Sergeant O’Grady stated that shortly after G p.m. on the Sunday mentioned, on, account of information received, lie went to tli^-Suf-folk Hotel in College Kill Load, and found that the bar of the hotel was open,- and the licensee and a man who assisted him as barman were alone in pH. bar. He asked Sands what he had

the bar .open for on Sunday evening. The licenses pulled out his watch and said it was Monday morning, and appeared to oe of Opinion that it "v\ as Monday morning until convinced that it was Sunday evening, and lie then closed the bar. Mr. F. V. Fraser, S.M.. stated that as a breach of the Licensing Act there was n °t much in the case even, if convicted, and he would not be disposed to fmc defendant.; but he was not quite satisfied, purely as an academical point of law, that he should dismiss the case. The charges were eventually dismissed as trivial under section 92 of the Justices of the Peace Act. -'■ ’ —— —■ w - i