SLY GROG SELLING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2452, 17 March 1909, Page 5

SLY GROG SELLING.

CONVICTIONS IN CHRISTCHURCH. (Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, March 16. At the Magistrate’s Court to-day, Ella Regan, a colored woman, with three or four previous convictions, was convicted of selling liquor without a license, and was sentenced to six months’ hard labor. Herbert Anderson, who occupied the same house as Regan, was fined £SO on a similar charge. The Magistrate, in giving judgment, said: “The fewer words I use the better ,for the case is a most disgusting one to every decent person. I am goingto break up what I consider the black spot of the city.” In regard to the characters of the witnesses, and the methods adopted by them, His Worship said he could not speak of that aspect of the matter at all. It seemed that it was no doubt necessary for the police to sometimes employ men of this mass, and they must therefore be regarded as a necessary evil m cases of flux sort. Sub-Inspector McGrath, after tlie case had been heard, told an “Evening News” reporter that the police knew nothing of the tactics adopted by the witnesses, and would not have countenanced tlieir action liad they known of it.