A LIQUOR MULE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 293, 11 December 1929, Page 9

A LIQUOR MULE.

COCKTAIL WITH A KICK, POTENCY OF SKOOKIAN. 70 STABBING CASES A WEEK. IRKSOME LICENSING LAWS. What is perhaps the world's most potent cocktail is dispensed in Johannesburg. Possessing a kicK like a mule, its ingredients are, nevertheless, Jelished by the natives. The mere thought.of the concoction, however, is sufficient to make the European shudder. The law in Transvaal forbids the supply of liquor to natives, according to a South African who is visiting Auckland, but thousand of gallons of Skookian—illicitly brewed native beer made from yeast—is sold every day by shebeens or native women, whose "bars" are the backyards of slum areas. The native 'has long since tired of having to drink gallons of this more or less harmless beverage in order to strike a convivial humour, and has demanded the infusion of a "kick" in his drink. This the shebeens graciously supply by adding to the beer liberal (loses Gf carbide, methylated spirits, and any other poisonous substance on which they can lay their hands that is likely to provide the desired effect. " The Greatest Menace." Paid for at the rate of Od and 1/ a jam tin full, this cocktail "a la Bar+u" produces CO and 70 stabbing cases eu-ry week-end in Johannesburg. One or two drinks is sufficient to convert the natives' minds back to their former barbaric state. The doped Skookian is the State's greatest menace, and no European is safe if he attempts to argue with a native in the city streets when he finds him in the throes of one of his carousals. The amusing side of the illicit trade is the competition that is rife among the shebeens in vieing with one another from one end of the Gold Reef to the other in manufacturing "kick" liquor of the greatest potency. The more kick, the more trade is the motto of the "liquor queens" of Johannesburg.

The anxiety of the administration in South Africa to prevent the natives from obtaining intoxicants has resulted in some peculiar and somewhat irksome licensing restrictions. The hotel proprietors in the Union have now had almost a year's experience of. the new liquor legislation introduced by Mr. Tielman Roos, K.C., ex-Minister of Justice, and are still striving to secure the elimination of certain clauses contained in it which are regarded by South' Africans and visitors alike as "comic opera" restrictions. Blacks Banned in Bars. For instance, a resident or permanent boarder in an hotel has no more privileges than the man in the street. On a Sunday he dare not be supplied with liquor at. any other time than in the dining room during prescribed hours. This stipulation has proved aggravating in the extreme, especially when it is "added that the law also compels the boarder to take his liquer with his 'coffee in the dining room. The law is being broken in hotels, and nearly every proprietor" is complaining bitterly that he is being made a criminal. Another interesting fact is that the native washup and cleaning boys in hotels are not permitted to take a single step inside a bar room. The law has been circumvented by the cutting of pigeon holes in the walls of the bar room partitions. Through these the dirty glasses arc handed for the boys to wash. "The position in regard to the native will be appreciated when it is stated that every scrap of menial work in South Africa is done exclusively, and always nas been done by the Bantu," explained the visitor. "For the first time in history barmen, and even proprietors themselves are to be seen relieving natives of casks of beer and supplies of whisky at the bar room door, simply because the law will not allow a native to enter there, even if he is an employee. The whole object of the law in its present form," he added, "is to keep the native away from liquor; but the position is being carried to such a ludicrous issue that it has become a laughing-stock. If a native were to enter a bar to clean a spitoon. the proprietor would run the risk of being -prosecuted."

A fire which occurred in the brick garage of the Paeroa-Waihi Transport Company at Paeroa resulted in two large buses parked being practically destroyed. There were 11 cars in the garage, but none was damaged.