DOMINION NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1916, Page 2

DOMINION NEWS.

CHEMISTS IN XO-LICE>s T SE DISTRICTS. By Telegraph .—Press Association. Oamaru, January 20. Mr. Bartholomew, S.M., gave deferred decision in a case in which a chemist was charged with keeping liquor, to wit, molendo wine, for sale within a nolicense district. The magistrate said the prosecution had raised an important point as to the position of chemists in no-license districts, a point that had not previously been tested. For the defence, it was claimed that a chemist in a no-license district had the same right as one in a district where license existed, hut the Chief Justice had decided against that view, and the Magistrate convicted defendant. As it was a test case, defendant was merely ordered to pay court costs (7s). GUIDE'S HUT ROBBED. Tiiuaru, January 20. A guide named J. N. I-ippe was absent from his hut at the Hermitage for a couple of days from January 9 to 11, and left a purse containing £23 and other valuables in the pocket of a coat hanging up. He did not look at it till his second return on the Mth, and the purse was then gone. fl. H. Jlcl.auchlan, engaged as a porter at the Hermitage, was charged today with the theft of the purse and contents, and pleaded guilty. Ho was arrested at Fairlie. nnd after denying, confessed the theft. -4 ■ COMPLAIN'TS BY SOLDIERS.

Christcluivch, January 2G. The Defence Minister was waited on by returned soldiers, who ventilated grievances about railway passes, delays in notifying decisions of the Medical Board, shuttlecock methods between the local and the Wellington -Defence Office, and also returned soldiers' inability to compete for commissions with men enlisting at the present moment. The Minister said he had had no reply yet from fleneral Godley to his invitation to recommend live or six returned men for commissions in the reinforcements. It would be unfair to recommend returned men who happened to be, in New Zealand without considering those in Egypt and, England. It was better to let General Godley decide.