BETTING HOUSES. 



459 



A " place ' 

 must be 

 fixed and 



In Scotland, however, the argument that a " place " Decision in 

 must be ejusdem generis with a house, office, or room, has Scotland. 

 been adopted ; it having been held that an inclosed race- 

 course some twenty acres in extent was not within the Act, 

 and that even if it were so, the proprietor, who saw that 

 betting was being carried on by a professional betting man 

 (who had resorted thither with others of the general public 

 ©n the occasion of certain races), and did not attempt to 

 stop the betting, though he gave no special facilities, was 

 not thereby liable under the Act as having knowingly and 

 wilfully permitted the race-course to be used by another 

 person for the purpose of betting (/). 



In Reg. v. Preecly [g), Hawkins, J., in the course of a 

 considered judgment in which he submits the cases on this 

 subject to an elaborate and critical review, says : — " In all ascertained. 

 the cases it will be found that one essential requisite to the 

 constitution of such a place is that it must, to adopt the 

 expression of Brett, J., in Howes v. Fenwick (A), be ' fixed 

 and ascertained.' It must, too, be a place to which, at the 

 time when the offence is charged to have been committed, 

 persons were resorting, though with what primary object 

 they were so resorting is, in my judgment, immaterial ; the 

 Act is silent upon that point. The temptation to gamble 

 by betting was what the Act was intended to check, and 

 the temptation to bet would be equally held out by a pro- 

 fessional betting man plying his avocation in a crowd of 

 persons assembled for the most innocent purpose un- 

 connected with sport, as it would in a crowd of persons 

 gathered together to witness the sport of racing. It need 

 not be enclosed within walls or fences, or bounded by any 

 defined line. Furthermore it may extend over a consider- 

 able area, even acres of ground. Were it otherwise many 

 race-courses might be pointed out upon which a betting 

 man might with impunity carry on such operations as the 

 statute was intended to suppress. It must not, however, 

 be supposed that I intended to say that a place to come 

 within the statute may be unlimited in its area ; on the 

 contrary, I am of opinion that, though it may be bounded 

 by no defined line, it must, nevertheless, be limited in 

 extent, to the area occupied by the persons congregated 

 together, and resorting to it, and to such a space that a 



at p. 24, per A. L. Smith, J. ; 

 Whitehurst v. Fincher, 62 L. T., 

 N. S. 433. 



(/) Henreity v. Hart, 13 Ct. of 



Sess. Cas., 4th Series, 9. 



[g) 17 Cox, C. C. 433, at p. 438. 

 (h) L. E., 9 C. P. 339. 



