TELEGRAMS LIQUOR IN THE KING COUNTRY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue LXXXIV, 23 September 1912, Page 3

TELEGRAMS LIQUOR IN THE KING COUNTRY

A SUICIDE. [BY TXtBGftAPH— SPECIAL TO IB POM.] NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day. News of a dramatic suicide was received by the New Plymouth police last night. J. R. Sigley, aged about 65, shot himself on Saturday at Awakino, on account of mental distress, occasioned it is said, by his being ostracised by his fellow residents at Awakino because of an allegation that he gave information j to the police which led to a seizure of j liquor. The t allegation preyed considerably on his mind and, cold-shouldered on all sides, he at last — so the police are informed^sought solace in taking his own life. It is a well-known fact thab illicit whisky drinking is rife in the King Country, especially around Awakino, and a man who is believed to have '-'informed" is treated in a manner that cannot be mistaken. That something should be done to suppress whisky-run-ning in the King • Country has been forcibly evidenced of late. Some weeks or go ago a bushman was admitted to the New Plymouth Hospital a complete physical and mental wreck on account of having imbibed too freely of bad and doped^ whisky. Only last week, in a case in which a man was accused of stealing a case of whisky seized by the police, the fact was elicited that although it Was a prohibited the township of Awakino was fairly littered with whisKy bottles. When a resident got a case in the custom was to invite all his friends to join in a symposium. Mostly they drank whisky neat. Many people who have sojourned in the prohibited area aver that owing to the difficulty of detection matters will never be righted until prohibition is removed altogether. Properly conducted hotels would, they hold 1 make far more for law and order and decency than the present illicit trade which is carried on.