PETERSFIELD, APRIL 5.
IRREGULARITY IN A MALTHOUSE.—EXCISE PROSECUTION AND FINE OF £100.—REGINA v. WEEKS.—This was a prosecution instituted by the Board of Inland Revenue against the defendant, who is an extensive farmer and maltster, residing at Eastmeon, and heard at Petersfield petty sessions, on Tuesday, before the Hon. J. J. Carnegie (chairman), Sir A. K. Macdonald, and Mr. J. Waddington. Mr. Dwelly, from London, conducted the prosecution; and Mr. H. Ford, of Portsmouth, appeared for the defendant. The information contained seven counts, varying the form of the charges, but all relating to two transactions—one on the 22nd of January, the other on th 3rd of February.—Mr. Dwelly opened the case by taking a cursory review of the process of malting in its several stages, and then explaining the excise regulations with reference thereto. Having stated the leading features of the case, he called witnesses to prove tampering with a couch of malt and cistern. Mr. Ford remarked on the high character which defendant and his father before him had always maintained for a period of upwards of 70 years, during the whole of which time they had never been charged with any attempt to evade the law, nor even received so much as a caution from the Excise. The charge against his client was the foolish and unauthorised act of his servant, of which he was in no way cognisant. True the law held him responsible for his servant’s acts, unless he could prosecute that servant to conviction; but this he could only do by proving that the deed was done maliciously, and this there was no means of proving in the present case. He would call the man himself, and his learned friend might subject him to any amount of cross-examination he chose, and he would find that he had no authority whatever from Mr. Weeks to act in the manner he had done.—The magistrates retired to consider their judgement, and on returning into court, the Chairman said they adjudged defendant to be guilty under the second and fourth counts, the former charging him with conveying away grain, so that there could be no gauge of the same, and the latter charging him with removing grain from the cistern at illegal hours. The penalty under the former count was £200, which they reduced to one-fourth (£50); the other penalty was £100, which they reduced to one-half (£50).
See also 5-Apr-1862 for full report