"SHOUTING" SUPPRESSED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 6, 8 January 1916, Page 14

"SHOUTING" SUPPRESSED

The no-treating oitier in Londcvn is said to have .caused, the disappearance, if not the death, o£ that old bat unregretted institution", the sponger —the "earbiter" as be is familiarly and tialfcontemptaously known. Concerninff ■&• members of that fraternity the >, manager of a well-known London City bar said : "I have been here for seven years; I and there are some of those sort that have been, .known to come, here every day for twenty. But to-day, for the ! first time since. I have been in this I house, they haven't turned up in their usnal place at the usual time. It doesn't seem real -without them, though, of course, we shaJl soon get over tKat."> i Five colonials entered an' hotel not far from Charing Cross and, forgetting the new regulation, one of them "called" for the rest of. the company. The barmaid, however, was firm. "No treating," she said. " All right, then; we all, pay for our own," said the -would-be treater ;. arid 'each.man.did, but. the.cash register .was- paralysed when.they each laid on the bar-table,a one-pound note. In some houses was posted the following •lines :—'-.'.■..',.. '.■■'■" v: ' '" •' Yer.mustn't treat your pals, Yer mustn't treat your gals, Yer mustn't treat yer missus or yer kids, And if yer try ter'do.it, Yer pretty sure ter rue it, For it'll cost yer lots an' lots of quids/ " Although 'we are glad' to get rid of the spongers," said a West End manager, "the order has one effect which everyone must admit is a pity. It kills a great deal of sentiment and deals a blow to genuine places of rendezvous."