The Daily News FRIDAY, MAY 31st, 1907. WHAT IS A "PEACE"?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 31 May 1907, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, MAY 31st, 1907. WHAT IS A "PEACE"?

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for a br.each oi' it. Kverybody is expected to know all the law llwt was over made. In a recent ease against a bookmaker who hud wagered on a racecourse,, the information was dismissed, beeauso although the bookmaker had betted on the course, he was in a "place*' when he did it. In fuel, the astute counsel persuaded the itliigistrate that a box on which the defendant had been standing in order to give him a superior altitude in shouting the odds was not a "place." This peculiarly pernicious practice of calling one inanimate object a "place" and another not a "place*," is one of the strangest things the layman is expected to understand. Only two or three days ago it was decided in a Court that the alleyway of a public-house was not a "public place/' and an information laid in respect to an oll'enee alleged to have been committed in a place that was not a "place'"' was dismissed. Reverting to informa- ! lion laid against bookineker.i, who. if they are allowed on a racecourse, must not be in a "place," a learned judge now retired decided a few years ago that a

coat laid oil a fence owned by a bookmaker who from this depot called the odds constituted tlie ground consecrated by the coat a ''place." The same I learned judge also decided tliat the wearing of the large boots once effected by j bookmakers to give them height made the ground upon which the boots rested a ''place.'' Furthermore, the same judge was most decided in asserting that an umbrella stuck in the ground, by the side of which a bookmaker plied his pencil was a "place." Eighteen months ago a drunken mail strolled on to a

school playground, during playhours. He was insnnitary, obscene, and altogether vile in the presence of many children. lie Was haled to Court. If he had committed the obscenity of which lie was guilty on a road ill the presence of adults or tfven of one case-hardened constable, he would assuredly have been treated to two years' hard. It was decided, however, that the playground was not a "place." He was discharged. If one can discover anything more grotesque than this traversitv, this splitting of straws in relation to what is and what is not a "place," we would like to hear of it. AVe arrive at the conclusion that an umbrella stuck in the ground constitutes a '"place," and that a candle-box in the same ground is not a "place." That it is less of a sin for a bookmaker to ply his calling while standing on a

candle-box than for a vile individual to curse horribly in the presence of little children. That a bookmaker may not wear boots on a racecourse because he makes a racecourse a "place" by so doing, but that be can lay wagers "until the cows come home" if he lays them hi an alley of a public-house which is not a "place." But why pursue the subject? The judiciary will go on piling up fooltalk about places that are not "places" and "places" that are places "within the meaning of the Act" as long as wigs are worn. " fxiif's