CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 17, 20 January 1875, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

BUSH LICENSES.

To tub Editok of thb ' Evening Mail.' Sib — I am an unsophisticated woman, though my name be a Queen's — English v ithal — and I have a grievance. Women, they say, c.-snnot keep a secret, and I do not mean to prove an exception to the rue. The fact is that my husband, good and kind otherwise, drinks, and it makes me and the children miserable. The only time in my life I ever set foot in a public house — horrid dens those bush license inns— was but lately, aud with a view to remonstrating with the publican (of course the very antipodes of a nice man) for supplying my husband mth be.r, when he (the publican) and his wife express d their astonishment at my impudence — so they were pleased to call my remonstrances— and jeeringly asked me what public-houses were for, if not for the sale of beer. Now, Mr Editor, this is too bad. Is a man, possibly not long aa;o a mere drudge, to be allowed both to ruin the people and to deride them with impunity, because be and bis partner may have realised a few pounds behind a bar redolent with tobacco juica and stale beer? Cannot the law interfere? lam told it will if I expose my case, but of course this is out of the question, as by <*oing so I shou'd expose myself also. I -do not mind telling you of it, because an editor, I take it for granted — confessor-like — receives the woeful tales of man)- a heartbroken wife und-rr the strictest secrecy; but I have an invincible repugnance to "layer mon linge sale," except as prescribed in the f imily. Besides, Mr E iitor, the law, though possibly anxious to extend its protection to d unkards' wives, has gone the wrong away about it, as I feel su*e you will admit when I call your attention to the following: items in the newspapers : — " When in a fit of delirium tremens he made straight tor the river, and b lore anybody had time to stop him he was carried away by a strong current and disappeared shortly afterwards. His body h- s not yet been recovered." So much for No. 1. No 2 goes on to say, '- and after a bout he took a butcher's knife and ripped up his mate's belly in the most atrocious manner." Whilso No. 3 informs us tbat " he was drunk as long as his* money lasted, and it is better he should havrf shot himself thin somebody else." Who, let me ask, are the real perpetrators of thesecrim.es? Who, indeed, but the publican. And in what shape does punishment reach him? Is he brought up for manslaughter or bound over to keep the peace towards the public? No he gets a bush license, (bosh they c^ll it here) possibly becomes the c!d- f ma-* on the Eoad Board, and te made much of iv other equally weighty matters, whilst on Sundays he and his lady sail majestically up and down our little village, for you must not lose sight of the fact Mr Editor that we are but country people. You don't realise these things in Nt-lson, so at least I am told by one of my sisters who lives there, and it gladdens me to hear her say so. Perhaps it is difficult, impossible, for the law to interfere, but is it equally so to withhold those ' bush licenses," which are, I am confident, if not an incentive, at least a motive ior people to apply for such licenses, who have no claim whitever to them. Mr Editor, for one man who applies for bush licenses there are twenty people within a s: one's throw — so to say —of his house who curse both the publican and the license, und the law th t grants it, And here I must tepeat myself and say that the law lias on that particular t oint gone astray altogether. Meanwhile the man has a bush license, whilst I have the husband who pays for the beer and tho license; aud if nothing better can be devised to protect inebriates wives, we women must take the matter up, helping in our humble and of a necessity limited way, the Templars in the good work they bave initiated, and the best way to promote such work is * * * But, Mr Editor, I am no bas bleu, and it has taken me a long time to write the foregoing; besides I do not want to trespass too much on your space and good nature. #'.nd so, what I consider to be the best means to protect ourselves ag linst 'aw and bush license •, I br g leave to e'efer disclosing till thi?, my first letter, has appeared in your columns. I am, &c, Boadicea. P.S. — The above is written by a woman's pen at the request of anoih r woman, whose eas 1 * I know to be neither a sol.tary nor an exaggerated one. [This is by no means the first remonstrance of the kind that has reached us. We shall have great pleasure in publishing ' Boadicea's " remedy for the ovil of which she complains.— Ed. N.E.Mi]

J {For remainder of News see fourth page.)