454 



BETTING HOUSES. 



Temporary 



stnicture 



adjoming 



race-conise. 



Shaw V. 



Morley. 



to be within the statute (».e., sections 4 and 5) mrast be 

 capable of having an owner or 'occupier. ... As a 

 decision upon the question whether the plaintiff was entitled 

 to recoTer iinder section 5, it is obviously right. If read 

 as an opinion upon a question not before the Court, viz., 

 whether the defendant might have been convicted under 

 section 3, it is difficult to say that it is satisfactory. For 

 my own part, I think it is not essential to a place within 

 section 3 that it should have an occupier, or that the per- 

 son who uses it for the illegal purpose should have permis- 

 sion to do so from either owner or occupier. The right or 

 title to be upon the place seems to me to be utterly immaterial, 

 if in fact there is an illegal user of it (r)." 



In Shaw v. Morky (s) the facts were as follows : — On 

 land adjoining a race-course, and just outside an inclosure 

 reserved for ticket-holders, was a long strip of ground of 

 six feet wide, bounded on one side by an iron railing, 

 which surrounded the inclosure, on the other side by a 

 permanent wooden paHng facing the open ground. Within 

 this strip were placed temporary wooden structures, in 

 which during the races the business of betting was carried 

 on. They had desks fronting both wnys, and at each desk 

 was a clerk with a book, and a person standing in front 

 of each desk conducted the business on behalf of the person 

 who rented the strip of land, and the bets were recorded 

 by the clerk. At one of these structures the defendant 

 conducted this business. On appeal from a conviction 

 imder section 3, it was contended on behalf of the appeU 

 lant, that an " office " or " place " to be wiiliin the Act, 

 must be ejusdem generis with a " house " or " room," which 

 this was not, being only a temporary wooden structure, not 

 even covered with a roof, and incapable of answering the 

 purposes served by the betting houses which the Act was 

 meant to suppress ; but it was held that it was an " office " 

 and a " place " within the meaning of the statute, and that 

 the appellant was rightly convicted ; KeUy, C.B., expressly 

 saying that it did not matter whether there was a roof or 

 none, or whether the structure was moveable or fastened 

 to the earth. 



Martin, B., was of the same opinion, adding : " What it 



(r) A similar view of the ratio 

 decidendi in Doggett t. Catterm 

 appears to have been adopted by 

 Ijndley and Kay, L.JJ.,- in the 

 recent case of Liddell v. Lofthoitse, 



[1896] 1 Q. B. 295 ; 40 S. J. 278. 



(j) L. K., 3 Ex. 137; 37 L. J., 

 M. C. 105 ; 19 L. T., N. S. 15 ; 16 

 "W. R. 763. 



