DRINKING.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8047, 16 December 1891, Page 6

DRINKING.

BO THB BDITOa OT THB PRXB9. SIR,—-Re the cases of drunkenness before Che Court on Monday your report says :— •* The Bench was of opinion that the perBons who supplied the boy with drink were more to blame than the lad, and Mr Pender was asked to make enquiries as to where it waff obtained." Might not this question be aeked in every case of drunkenness ? For is it not a fact that every hotelkeeper who supplies drink to the extent to make a person drunk is violating the law " Every license in the colony is granted upon the distinct understanding that drunkenness is not to be permitted, and yet, alas, we can never take up a newspaper, but we find case after case brought before the Court, and almost every day one or more first offenders, some young man or Woman brought up to have the first. brand Btruck," Drunkard," and it is seldom anyone asks," Who made them drunk ? " - "Why should tnese drink-sellers be allowed to break the law every day ? Other people mix a little water in his milk to make it last out, or the batcher have meat in Mβ shop for sale that has gone bad, the police are on their track at once. They are brought before the Court, fined, and disgraced. But, Io 1 the drink-eeller can go proudly on his way, making people* drunk, selling after hours, selling en Sunday, selling drugged and adulterated liquors; but no one interferes.

Men are poisoned day by day with the dragged drinks. How often do we see men brought before the Court changed with drunkenness remanded for medical treatment (what does that mean? Delirium tremens), then in a few days we read they ye dead and no more if heard of it. I hope the day is not far distant when Sight-minded men and women in this city Wul band themselves together and demand that our magistrates and police shall do their duty or stand aside for those who wilL It is a crying shame against the civilisation of. the nineteenth century that .we should have laws upon our Statute iraoks, and that these laws should be a dead letter, while the violation of them is filling our gaols, pauperising the people, paralysing trade, ruining homes, breaking Learts, .and fast bringing on the time when in this fair land we shall need a General Booth to devise some way out of Darkest }few Zealand.—Yours, &c., J. Knctt.