WHEN WILL CONVICTIONS BE RECORDED ?

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 54, 31 August 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHEN WILL CONVICTIONS BE RECORDED ?

"When," asks the Staffordshire Sentinel, " should the holder of a beerhouse or hotel license recognise the faot that one of his customers has spent as much money in his house as is consistent with him getting, home safely P Apparently, in Hanley, he should be in total ignorance of anything relating to the fact until he receives official information on the point from an officer of the law. During this year several cases of permitting drunkenness have come before the Hanley Court, and in all of them the defendants have either been discharged or very nominal fines have been imposed. Why ? Beoasue it has been argued for the defence that, even if the persons who are alleged to be under the influence of drink were in that condition, it was without the knowledge of the landlords, and that the Court oould not convict unless they believed the landlord had knowledge. This defence has been generally successful. Perhaps this ia because the opinion is baoked up by that of two eminent Justices. But t'aen, it is so remarkably easy for a landlord to go into the box and swear that he had no idea the man was drunk. 'Really, I would not have served him if I had thought so.' It is, on the other hand, impossible for a policeman or any one else to swear; that the landlord did know the person ma drunk. They can only say at the utmost that it was a faot obvious to them and should have been the sametothalandlord. Atthepresent time the question is : — When will a conviction be recorded?" RIGHT FOE THE WIDOW. In G-uelph, Canada, the widow of a man who was drowned in a mill-race while in a state of intoxication oftained a verdict for damages against tl>e two tavern-keepers who had supplied him with the liquor. One of them had to pay 300 dol. and the other 600 dol. for making the man so drunk as to be lnoapabla of taking care of himself. This decision, which will commend itself to all good citizens, establishes an important principle, which cannot but exert an important influence over thoso engaged in the liquor business, and ia one we would like to see embodied in the law of New Zealand.