RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT LAWRENCE.

Friday, 16th June. (Before E. H. Carew, Esq., KM., Police v. Wong On and Ah Hoy. His Worship now gave judgment in this case as follows This is an information charging the accused with being partners in a lottery or game known as pak-ap-pew. The defence rests upon the plea that there is no evidence of any lottery or game of chance, and none to prove that defendants were partners in the lottery or game. I has been contended that the evidence goes no further than to show that the proceedings in the house on the night in question were those which might fairly be assumed to be those possibly usual in a Chinese commercial banking system but even if the case rested alone upon the evidence of Sergeant Shury, I think there could be no reasonable doubt as to the proceedings being some-game or scheme of chance. Beyond this, there is the evidence of a Chinese witness, and although I feel surprise that the prosecution came into court depending upon the evidence of one who must be well known to the police as the business partner of one of the defendants, and consequently unlikely to be a willing witness, he has, although in a reluctant manner, proved that the game of pak-ap-pew was being conducted, and that it is a game or lottery in which a bank is kept, and by which prizes are distributed by lot or mode of chance; and from his evidence, upon a little calculation, it is plainly to be seen that the distribution of prizes must be in small proportion to the aggregate of the stakes. It has been shown by both witnesses that the defendants were m such positions and doing certain acts that I feel bound to come to no other conclusion than that they were taking parts in the management and control of the proceedings. Tuapeka Times, Volume IX, Issue 574, 17 June 1876, Page 2