WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1918, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE COURTS DIFFER. MAGISTRATES AND JUDGE.?. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, July 19. The Stipendiary Magistrates and the Supreme Court Judges are not in agreement upon several oases that have lately attracted much attention in Wellington. The Mgistrate recorded convictions ia the notorious Kelburn case, in the alleged light weight butter ease and in the gambling on licensed premises case. The public, ignorant of the law and apparently of the merits of the cases, warmly applauded these decisions and Wellington plumed itself on having developed the superior conscience. But now the Supreme Court has asserted its majesty and quashed the convictions, holding that the magistrate was wrong and that the defendant must go free. The zeal of the city for putting its house in order, as it imagined, has been sadly damped. BETTING NOT GAMBLING. The only consolation that remains to the ardent reformers is that they now have an authoritative pronouncement to tlm effect that betting on horse racing is not gambling within the meaning of the licensing Act. The Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, has consulted Webster's and Murray's dictionaries and ha 9 discovered that then - definition of gambling does not include betting. Colloquially wc talk of laying and taking tho odds as gambling, but really it is only betting, and if we gave the word a wider application wo should render the man who speculates on the Stock Exchange or buy 3 land for a rise subject to grave pains and penalties. The law truly is a subtle thing, even more difficult to understand than it is to obey. MILITARY CAMPS. The message sent to the Minister of Defence by the Wanganui branch of the Returned Soldiers' Association stating that the conscientious objectors in the Detention Barracks are better treated than the men in camp, has given rise in some quarters to an impression that a large number of the. men in training are dissatisfied with their conditions at Trent-ham and Eeatherston. 'As far as can be gathered from personal enquiries at both places this is very far from being the case, and the men themselves suggest that the Wanganui returned soldiers made the comparison merely to emphasise their opinion that the conscientious objectors were being treated .with more leniency fcb.an they deserved. This is the view the Minister himself is inclined to take. The rabbit nuisance, which 30 years ago was the gravest peril menacing the oast ora lists of the South Island, has lately assumed grave dimensions in the North, and it was only natural that it .should have received some attention from the Conference of the Council of Agriculture. In discussing a motion to the effect that the Departmennt of Agriculture should take more drastic measures to r.uppres-s ,the nuisance several speakers, including Sir Walter Buchanan, urged that the export of rabbitskins and preserved rabbits should be prohibited. People closely concerned in the subject have been urging this step for a long time past, Relieving that the profits made out of rabbits were delayins: their destruction, and now the Council of Agriculture has taken the ' matter in hand the Government may be expected to do something