INVERCARGILL UNDER NOLICENSE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LI, Issue 9137, 9 July 1906, Page 6

INVERCARGILL UNDER NOLICENSE.

"Two minutes to go, so fill them up again,, miss; here's luck to the long reign of No-license!" was an almost universal cry as the minute hand of the town clock - crept close to the hour of ten on Saturday night , and glasses were filled up again and again. Drinks were not drunk, but eaten or poured out in the endeavor to have the honor of paying for the last round o! • drinks in tho various hotels, and in several • cases that honor is still being argued by many claimants. Young fellows on a wage of a few shillings a week wero drunk for perhaps the first time in their lives, and advocate of Prohibition certainly will -have that as an argument to go on when an attempt is made to regain the lioenses three years hence. Still, with very few exceptions, order was well observed and better maintained, the police provisions being splendid, though really not required. One house had sold out of everything about sis o'clock, and put up its shutters straight away. That street was neglected for the rest of the evening. The majority of the remainder of the houses ran out of beer and wines some time before ten o'clock, and in many cases whisky, often well broken down, was the only alcohol left. The health of the popular licensees was many times drunk in their own bars, / with full musical honors, ajid those who were not popular were treated with less attractive honors. In one house, where one of the connections of tho licensee some little fimo previous had had to make a donation to tJie hospital to prevent a criminal prosecution for breaking •windows in a church, the compliment was returned, and in addition to fully £10 worth of glass being broken, a door was forced in and damaged — an act of retaliation which appeared to find favor with a very large ciowd. Yet the town was orderly, at half-past eleven tho police had only taken charge of three drunks. Ten o'clock was closely observed, and licensees shut doors 'and bars with all regard to the licensing laws, and it must be said to their credit that any action of theirs on Saturday night cannot be used as an argument against the open bar when the next vote of the people is taken on the question. iiargo nmnbers of country people came into town to see the horse-play that was predicted, and they went home disappointed, yet pleased, with the behaviour of the young men of Invercargill, for beyond beid g in a decidedly merry and musical frame of mind they respected tho laws of ifo& land, and found their way home to reflect upon the money they had wasted and the liquor they had consumed on the last night of "open bar" in the fifth city of the colony. In one house, •where an employer is a flautist of no mean merit, after the doors had been closed a procession was formed of the other employees, and he led a parade through the passage way playing tfie "Dead March" in "Saul." JJi othter houses similar scenes were enacted as tihe so-called right of the people passed from them. On Sunday morning the town was quiet-like and peaceful. Besidents who had fought desperately for the retention of the open bar were sleeping— sleeping off the effects of a "braw Scotch nicht." — Fortunately the night was a beautifully fine one. — Dunedin Star.