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New Zealand Mail, Issue 1265, 28 May 1896, Page 20

The Magisterial investigation recently relative to the charge of sly-grog selling at Balelutha furnishes a most unlovely example of what may happen in a Prohibition district. The counsel for the defence even pleaded that “ It was a perfectly patent fact that, as tho result of Prohibition, drink was obtainable anywhere iii Balelutha.” The witnesses generally seemed to be unable to distinguish whisky from hop beer, but one man who, in an unguarded moment, spoko of “nips” rather gavo the others away, and after this, tho Deluge, in the shape of scathing comment by the Magistrate on the frightful perversions of the truth to which he had been obliged to listen, and the infliction of the heavy lino of .£BO and costs, with tho alternative of four months’ imprisonment.