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DETAILS OF CANADIAN DECISION. Magistrate Kingsford Declares Structure Required to Constitute Gambling Place. Toronto, Out.. June 23. -"This case, at all events, will show where the onus lies to put this matter right." said Magistrate Kingsford in dismissing the charge against Jake Saunders and forty-four other bookmakers for carrying on betting at the Woodbine track during the recent race meeting. "The laa courts have gone- as far as they can in those cases. resumed the magistrate, "but they are powerless under the law to prevent these men from c ing here for betting purposes. The trouble is that it is all legalized by statute while lacing is going on. If the legislature wants to stop betting it can do so. At present the courts are powerless." At the commencement of the hearing a number of facts were admitted by T. C. Roblnette. K. C on behalf, of the defendants. In order to ezaadlte the hearing and get to the vital jioint of issue. "The whole thing conies down to the legal dctini-tion of the word place. " said Crown Attorney Corlev to the magistrate. "I am prepared to show," be said, "that there was alHiut an acre of land of Woodbine set apart for betting purposes, and that this constitutes a place within the meaning of the act." "We admit there was a place reserved, but it was not enclosed, and does not constitute a place." replied Mr. Boblnette. Over this point both lawyers argued, each producing authorities, but the magis trat" said lie was unable to accept Mr. Corleys argument that the way a place is used rather than the way it is constructed interprets its character. "If your worship cannot accept that, it is no use of burdening the ca-sc with the evidence," replied the crown attorney. "It would be a straining of the law. I am bound by the authorities as well as by common sense." said the magistrate. "But if I can show that Sauuders and his assistants each day occupied the same space in the betting pit. wouldnt that influence your .judgment !" persisted Mr. Corley. "I should still feel compelled to adopt the view-in the Kempton Park judgment, where, although the betting was conducted inside an iron-railed enclosure, the courts held that it was not u place," replied Mr. Kingsford. "Your worship hold*, then, that something structural is required to make it a place?" "I do." said the magistrate. Then he added: "I cannot understand why. if the jockey club fences off a place and practically hires these1 men to con duct the betting, they are not prosecuted for keeping a betting house . I would be unite prepared to hear a charge against the jockey club, for the case is different, as ii applies to them, but I cannot hear the charges as against these1 individual bookmakers."
