SUNDAY TRADING.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 312, 9 July 1898, Page 2

SUNDAY TRADING.

(UY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION). Wellington, Last Night. The hearing of a charge of Sunday traditu' against Mrs Blyth, licensee of the Royal Tiger Hotel, was concluded today, and Mr Kenny dismissed the case. The Crown Prosecutor said, after the remarks that had fallen from the Bench, he would withdraw the cases against five other hotelkeepers ; but Mr Jellicoc asked for the dismissal of the charges, and Mr Kenny accordingly entered up a dismissal. Mr Kenny said he must dismiss the case against Mrs Blyth on two grounds. The first was, supposing the evidence for the prosecution to be reliable, it had been adequately answered ; and the second was the evidence for the prosecution was of such a character as to be unreliable. As to the ethics of_ the case, it was a matter of opinion ; but as to the weight to be attached to the evidence for the prosecution it was his bouuden duty to speak out. He acquiesced in the decision of an American Court that the suggestion to the committal of a crime was not only reprehensible, but criminal. A private spy generally verged into a blackmailer, and what, he asked, was there to prevent the informer levying blackmail on the publican under a threat of prosecution. The witness Ghecketts, on his own statement, was the kind of man to do this sort of thing. There was an important discrepancy between the evidence of Mr T. E. Taylor, M.H.R., and that of the two principal informers, and the evidence of the latter he considered to be quite unreliable. There was no case to answer, and the charge must be dismissed. Counsel for the defendants asked for costs, but Mr Kenny refused to give them against the police, who, he said, under the circumstances, could not be blamed for taking up the case. After Mr Kenny gave his decision, a large crowd congregated at the entrance leading from the Court, with the avowed intention of making a hostile demonstrationagainstChecketts, tho principal witness in the case, but he managed to elude the crowd. Immediately after the dismissal of the licensing case 3 to-day the publicans of the city subscribed a sum of money wherewith to retain Mr Jelliooe to take proceedings against those concerned in the prosecution. Informations were accordingly laid in the Magistrate's Court this afternoon :—(1) Against Mr T. E. Taylor, M.H.R., James Armishaw and Henry J. Checkitts, charging them with conspiracy to procure breaches of the law ; (2) Against Taylor and Armishaw for alleged conspiracy to prefer false charges against an innocent person, and (3) against Armishaw and Checkitts for alleged perjury. Warrants were issued for the arrest of Armishaw and Checkitts, and summons against Taylor.