ELSTONE v. MARTELIS APPU.

ELSTONE v. MARTELIS APPU.

M. C. Colombo, 28.

Unlawful gaming-Ordinance No. 17 of 1889, s. 4-Playing in any place to which the public have access whether of right or not-Private land.

An open cocoanut plantation crossed by several paths which did not appear to lead from one house to another in it, nor from the adjoining roads to any of the houses in the plantation, and in which a game for a stake was carried on by divers persons, is a place to which the public have access whether of right or not.

The fact that such plantation is private land does not exclude it from the purview of section i of the Ordinance No. 17 of 1889. Perera v. Perera (2 C. L. R. 6) overruled.

THIS case of unlawful gaining, in which the Magistrate of the Municipal Court of Colombo (Mr. E. Ondatje) acquitted the accused, was heard in appeal by Mr. Justice Middleton on 7th May, 1903, when His Lordship, being doubtful of the soundness of the decision of Burnside, C.J., in Perera v. Perera (2 C. L. R. 6), on which the Magistrate had based his judgment of acquittal, directed the case to be listed before the Collective Court.

On the 18th May the case was argued before Lay

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