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GAMING RAID.
ARRESTED MEN IN COURT.
Gambling, Legal and Illegal.
As- a result of a police raid on premises
in Alexander-place, off Murray-street,
Perth, on Sunday night, gambling charges
were laid against 46 men in the Perth
police court yesterday. Jolin William
Gillies, who admitted having kept and
used the premises as a common gaming
house, was fined £5. with 11/6 costs. Ber
tram Goseman and Jack Stomatos pleaded
guilty to charges of having assisted to keep
the premises as a common gaming house,
and were fined £2 and £3 respectively,
with 3/6 coats each. Of the remaining
43, all except three, who pleaded not
guilty and were remanded, admitted hav-
ing been on premises which were used as
a common gaming house. Of these Alfred
Levy, Jack Anderson and Michael Malik,
who had records, were fined £3, £3 and £2
respectively, with 2/ costs, and all the
others were fined £1, with 2/ costs.
- Plainclothes Constable Culmsee said he
Went with others to the premises, where
he found about 50 men, most of whom were
playing a gambling game known as pique.
A few were playing rummy.
The Magistrate (Mr. H. D. Moseley,
P.M.): Rummy's harmless enough, isn't it.
' In answer to a question by Mr. J. F.
Walsh, who appeared for the defendants,
Constable Culmsee said that there was a
kitchen adjoining the room in which the
men were found, and he believed that meals
were available there.
- Mr. Walsh said that a technical breach
of the Police Act was admitted, but he
claimed that the offence was only a tri
vial one, and he asked for small penalties.
'I guarantee that in almost every club in
Perth,' he said, 'you would find people
playing contract bridge, etc., for stakes
considerably in excess of what these men
were playing for. These men regard these
premises as their club. -The State lotteries
are just as much a gamble as the game
played here.'
: 'I am concerned in the administration of
justice within the four walls of this Court,
and nowhere else,' said the magistrate.
'Except in those cases which come before
this Court I am in no way interested. If
the political authorities forbid one form
of gambling and insist that another is legal,
it has nothing to do with me.'
Three Youths Charged.
[ Three youths under the age of 18 who
were arrested in the raid were presented
later in the morning before Mr. 1 . F. Hor
gan, S.M., at the Perth Children's Court
and charged with having been on the pre
mmises of a common gaming house without
reasonable excuse. When asked to plead
they said that they thought that the place
was a club and a restaurant. They were
not gambling; and had been in the place
only a few. minutes 'before the raid was
made. They were remanded until to-
morrow.
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