PUBLIC-HOUSE INTEREST.

Press, Volume XXIV, Issue 3222, 29 December 1875, Page 2

PUBLIC-HOUSE INTEREST.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PBESS*. Sib—Allow mc space in the Pbess for a few lines in reply to " Anti-Humbug * in yours of the 20th, in reference to the above interest, as it is my opinion he wants light. I am happy to think that the working man is beginning to know how best to keep hia beer from souring, and not drinking it either; that is, in his breeches pocket, where he can always draw it fresh. As to the baker or butcher being subjected to police espionage, or being summoned day after day, or being hedged about with legislation, if bread or butcher's meat were as dangerous to the eona. . munity as beer, the sellers of them would have to submit to the same restrictions that tbe sellers of beer bave. But whoever saw a man or woman after eating bread tumble into the gutter, and have to be put in a place of safety by our livery servants—the police? Or, whoever heard of eating bread causing * man to go home and maltreat his wife and starve his family, which we see by the reports of our Magistrates' Courts drinking beer is doing daily ? And the excuse generally made by thieves in all our Courts of law, is—" I had been drinking;" and if the criminals in our gaols, and the destitute everywhere, were asked what made them soothe almost universal answer would be— * "Drink." The fact of the matter is, drinking alcoholic liquors is the principal em-**-ployer of judges, magistrates, police, and gaolers, all of whom have to be paid for, not by the sellers of drink alone, but by tha public. Let mc refertothereasonsgivenbytheHoa Mr Richardson for opening public-houses oar Sunday, that is because the publican permit* in selling on that day—rather a strange reason to be given by a Minister of the Crown. Did our worthy Minister of Public Works never hear of publicans being before the Magistrates for having sold drink after closing time at night ? If so, why not for tbe same reason open thema-1 night? And if so, why not for the same reason act in th* same manner in regard to theft, and evesry other fraudulent act, and repeal all oar penal laws 1 lam sure there is notkiog solike to bring a Government into disrepute than to see it favoring the law-breakers at the expense of the law-abiding part of the community. It is to be hoped that the Government will pause before they saddle the law-abiding part of the community with the expense of one-seventh more crime and destitution arising from the Bale of alcoholic liquors than we are now forced to bear, as undoubtedly we shall if the public-houses are opened on Babbath. . _* From one who on. this subject is new ashamed to be called HUMBUft