OUR LICENSING SYSTEM.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 662, 19 July 1871, Page 2

OUR LICENSING SYSTEM.

TO THZ IDITOB OF LIXX WAKATIF KAIL. Sib,—Respectfully I solicit a portion of your columns to explain how I was branded in the K M. Court here as a sly grog seller, when I was fined £5 and costs. The facts are these. I mislaid my old license of 1870, or it got destroyed. During I was never called upon to produce it. Up'to June 1871 I was not asked to produce any license. On the 22nd December, 1870, thorogh Sergeant Fox I sent down to the Government £26 by a Bank draft. That amount was received by the Government before the 31st December, 1870. I never took any more trouble about the matter. I believed everything was in order. I was allowed to trade in the usual manner for the first half of the year. Sergeant Smith replaced, a few months ago, Sergeant Fox. From an occurrence not necessary to explain, Sergeant Smith began to have a ' down' on me colonially speaking. I wss therefore summoned for selling liquors without a license. The Bench (Mr Beetham) remanded the case until I procured my license from town, and actually forwarded my letter to Dunedin stating the facts of the case. The license did not arrive, and the case was remanded again. On the 4th July I had a dance amongst my boarders in the hotel. At 9 p.m. Sergeant Smith entered my hotel and ordered music and dancing to desist. I told him it was a house party, and that at 12 o'clock my hotel should be closed as usual. When the remand case came on I was fined £5 and costs for selling liquors without a license. I was then told that if I had not defied the police on the 4th July, the charge would not have been pressed. I received the fall benefits of the usual severe homily Mr Beetham invariably indulges in. I confess that I am a publican and a sinner, and I suppose because I likewise assist the revenue that maintains that gentleman in his position, I must tamely endorse the lecture and'the penalty. I neither could, nor can Ido so. lat once paid the fine and costs to save imprisonment in a felon's den. I was threatened in a manner that reminded me of the celebrated Judge Jeffrey's conduct on the Bench During all this time my money was in the treasury; Mr Beetham knew it. I have since received a license dated 28th December, 1870, and yet I am fined £6 for illegally vending liquors. That decision did me great injury, and lam taking steps to obtain some redress for the gross wrong inflicted upon me. I have not been careless but the Government have been. lam made the victim because on the 4th of July I did not cause dancing to cease in my house. Why was I not fined in the first instance, or on the second remand P Why should another alleged breach of the ordinance have had weight with the Bench when no summons was issued against me P Why single me out for prosecution when other hotel-keepers are in the same fix P Why prohibit musia and dancing in my house when it is allowed in others P I shall thank you sincerely for the publication of this letter. lam about leaving the district, but I think I have a right to vindicate myself, and to show how harshly the law may be strained. My loss is large, but into that I will not enter. Allow me so much further space as to recommend the resusitation of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, for my case may soon be one of my fellow sinners.—l am, &c., William Maclabn. Prince of Wales Hotel, Queenstown, July 16,1871.