LICENSED PUBLIC HOUSES IN THE OUTLYING DISTRICTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1084, 1 April 1863, Page 3

LICENSED PUBLIC HOUSES IN THE OUTLYING DISTRICTS.

As you have explained that the purely accidental omission of the word " communicated" was the cause of your correspondents Messrs. Torlesse and Bishop falling into the belief that the proprietors of the ' Lyttelton Times' were in favor of the establishment of a public house in Okain's Bay; and those persons

have chosen to import conjecture into their letters and make positive assertions as to the existence of causes, and in remarkable christian charity accuse its writer of coining cases, it may be as well to commence by flatly denying,—first, that the writer is arguing only from evidence given in a case at Akaroa, or that he is coining in any case. Suppose, while this hasty and totally unnecessary imputation is being made, that his imagination is the fountain of his facts, lie retorts upon them that, having adopted one view of the case, they chose to ignore all that has been said and advanced on the other by men of equal wisdom with themselves. Who are the poor chaps of the settlement? Cannot a blue shirt cover as pure a heart and as high principles as a black coat and even a white necktie? Surely such sort of cant by common consent had been left out of the usual round of drivelling common places. Cannot a man in a simple Cumberland be as good as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

As he who contributed that article has a very practical knowledge of life in Canterbury, and on the Peninsula, has to the extent of his opportunities informed himself on the subject of drunkenness, by reading many of the best works on the physiology of that disease, and many such books as ' Haste to the llescue.' Hearts and Hands, &c., &c., and taken pains to disseminate the same, and could quote, if he chose, numerous instances in which lie has striven according to liis light to reform the drunkard, lie is not so ignorant of the actual state as well as the past state of affairs here, as your correspondents wish to make him appear : but he knows from long experieuce that that there is no legislating men into virtue and sobriety. As he believes that the best way to induce men to lead a good life, and leave off evil courses, is not to preach damnation and the eternal fire to them, for men soon harden uuder that, but, to discourse of love and mercy ; so he believes that it is much better that a man should have an honest taste for ' good old October' which lie supposes to be a well understood euphemism for good malt and hops (sometimes toasted as' John Barley corn,') and for good wine, than a periodical craving for a quantity of ' tanglelegs,' and he believes the existence of the two tastes to be incompatible in the same constitution. Having noticed in his own person, and in that of numerous others —his neighbors, that the constant swilling of large quantities of tea, whether weak or strong, has a very weakening effect on the coats of the stomach, which he sees to be increased in the case of the sawyer who is generally on a burst of work and perspiring copiously, and that the same is often strongly diuretic, he believes that a draught of ' good old October,' in good season, would be an advantage on the side of strength and health. He has remarked that the strong craving that comes over sawyers and splitters after a great burst of very monotonous work, is after the counteraction of an enforced abstinence; and that men who take as a rule the stimulus they require in the shape of ' good old October,' have no such periodical proclivities for ' Tangle-legs.' He has the Chanceller of the Exchequer's authority (not coined) for stating, that not only has the introduction of light wines into England had a great effect in reducing the consumption of ardent spirits, but that in spite of this reduced consumption, and the consequent falling off of the duties derived from the same, the consumption of light wines has so increased as to materially reduce the expected deficit caused by the closing of trade with the States of America; and he believes that it is better that Government should address itself to the consideration of all these questions with a vivid recollection of what this world and its matter of fact material character is. He believes that magistrates, coroners, officers of revenue, surveyors baliffs, constables, troopers, and trooper's horses, should have a legitimate place of rest at the end of their journeys, and that all ordinary and extraordinary travellers expect the same. Having read with some pleasure an article in the ' Press ' under the signature of Okain's Bay (which he believes to be a mis-spelling of the eminent naturalist's name after whom the bay is named), calling the attention of our little world to the bay, and the many inducements it offers to the pleasure and health seeking public. Glad as he would be did he fill a seat in the Provincial Council of Canterbury to advocate all the outfit of the Bay, yet lie believes that the first inducement to a travelling public seeking pleasure and health, probably conjoined with the predominating colonial idea of being able to do a little bit of spec, at the same time, is the knowledge that there exists a good hotel, accommodation, or boarding house, licensed for the sale of ' good old October and wine'; nor did he even insinuate thivfc it whs iicccssnry to license the same for spirits. Looking at life from the practical point of view, he believes that when a number of men can have these two natural and lawful means of refreshing and recruiting themselves, they will not even hanker or crave after spirits. He believes that the great temptation to illicit trading, viz., the knowledge on the part of the trader that he can wet up the old taste for ' Tanglelegs ' in a twinkling, will be done away with, lie has observed also that when a man takes into the bays a quantity of bad overproof rum or any other spirit in the hope of selling it legitimately by the two gallons, lie always gets new views after some time, and takes to retailing it by the bottle ; lie knows also that in long running accounts it is very often

necessary to say when these transactions do take place ; and as lie is not a clergyman, lie possesses many opportunities of obtaining knowledge which persons in holy orders never do, because nun have always concealments from them, regarding them as a sort of spiritual police, with whom it is as well to stand fairly. He thinks that, if he is to be allowed the same license of assertion and conjecture that Messrs. Torlesse and Bishop exhibit, that he'might insinuate that your two correspondents displayed an unnecessary sharpness in supposing that your contributor was either a J.P. or had any magisterial connection with the case, and not a little want of good taste in flatly asserting that he was wrong; seeing that he was quite right, and arguing from a multitude of premises and an experience quite equal at least to theirs. He also thinks he might say from the internal evidence supplied by their letters that they laid their heads together before they indited, and that when Mr. Torlesse descends from six feet above contradiction he might observe the usual conditions intelligible to gentlemen and avoid all attempts at personalities by inuendo, which so utterly destroy the utility that might follow a little public ventilation of matters. Men may differ in their views without quarrelling, and views may be expressed without its being gratuitously supposed that there is an intention to insult; there is little worth having to be gained in an attempt to discount the arguments of their opponents by seeking to unveil them, with

the view of insinuating. " when I tell you that I believe it to be such an one who wrote that, you may imagine the amount of sense it contains."

And in taking leave of the subject he is aware

that this question, like all others, has two extremes, two natural sides and a middle; and he has tried, according to his light to arrive at that middle. And if your correspondents cannot or do not wish to run a series of parallels, and like to take offence and be insulted by his using the refrain of an old song, ' and rob a poor chap of his beer,' why things must rest so, until Oken's bay becomes a watering hole. Should the contributor ever have a seat in any legislative assembly in this or any other country, he would be delighted to copy the French system, and try to introduce an inspector of all liquids exposed for sale. He believes that to punish the vendors of

falsified liquors—those who render good stuff pernicious with tobacco, cocculus indicus, quassia, oil of vitriol, and all other abominations is a far better way to stop vice and delirium tremens than punishing the victim of intemperance, for whom he has every manly sympathy. He has an equally vivid recollection that being responsible for what he writes, he has no business to offer these views to the public if they are likely to produce evil; but he knows from all history—to which he ventures (not dogmatically) to add his own experience—that this material world has to be governed, not according to what we all wisli it was but as every day's experience proves it to be. He further believes that when men refuse to accept this view they are as responsible for the evils that follow as he who puts the bottle to his neighbour's lips to make him drunk. His experience, extending over many years, and not all gained in only one country, enables him to utterly deny the following statement:—"Those who drink hard either do not think about the consequences at all, or else they are of that stamp that they can drink hard for a month without suffering from delirium." He has known a very great deal to disprove both these assertions— not in the way of inferred conclusions, but positive statements from the men themselves. But it seems that if his experience goes farther than that of your correspondents, he must not advance it without elaborating an apology, and for the present he is not inclined to do so.

If Okains Bay has decided that it will not have an accommodation house, he is afraid that nobody will be able to test the superiority " of its climate to that of Akaroa, and that no Paterfamilias will be gratified by the refreshing sight of seeing of seeing his youngsters up to their eyes in sand and seaweed, and snuffing iodine five minutes after landing," and " that the hard dry sand will never have a tithe of all the little folk of Christchurch put together to play in itindeed, he goes farther, and believes that if the inhabitants will only with sufficient clearness intimate to the Government that it is their irrevocable intention never to fall in with the usage of the world, and never have any hotels, publics, or even houses of accommodation with 'good old October,' that in sheer humanity to a travelling, health and pleasure seeking public, the Government will never instruct the Engineer to furnish a report upon the feasibility of providing a landing for goods to furnish an estimate of the cost, as they will be able (being practical menj to estimate the cost of such an undertaking by the light of the probable resulting good, and it would be seen at a glance that Okains bay resolving thus to stand by itself could have no such claim upon the public purse, and that the title of commodious would be just the very one to which it would have the least pretention. He also believes, that however painfully and carefully men may be coopered into a sort of pietism it is utterly unavailing in the long run, and infinitely prefers to see men taught to deal with the world in a fine strong and manly spirit of piety. In his estimate Pietism may get capsized by Tangle-legs, but Piety, good old October, and the juice that makes glad both the heart of God and man, need never be in evil reputeor relationship one towards another. And your contributor has no further remark to offer upon making Okains bay—a good watering-place.—Communicated.