ALCOHOLIC ASHBURTON. Truth

NZ Truth, Issue 276, 8 October 1910, Page 4

ALCOHOLIC ASHBURTON.

Truth

Published Eveby Saturday Mobning at Luke's Lane (off Mannersstreet), Wellington, n,z. TERMS TO SUBSCRIBERS. S. D. PER ANNUM... 13 0 ) PAYABLE HALF-YEARLY '66} IN QUARTERLY... 3 3 J ADVANCE. SATUEDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1910.

A Magisterial Bomb. A simple remark by Magistrate Day, at Timaru, a short while back has become famous. He was dealing with a female dipso., who promised to go into a prohibition district to avoid the cur-sed der-rink. His Worship observed that there Avere probably more temptations to drink m a prohibition district than m a licensed district ; that his experience had led him to 'believe that there was liquor praci-'caliy m every house lin a NoJicense district, and that a dipso.

would have many opportunities lor secret drinking. Anti-beer fanaticism is so rabid and deafening m tliis country, that the shrieks of the wowsers could be heard for many miles at sea, and added tumult to "tiha New South Wales elections fourteen 'hundred miles, away, New Zealand m the matter of beer-barring being nald up as, a pattern by the unctuous Nolicense freaks of Sydney. Magistrate Day's remarks reverberated m Wade's city like .the violent explosion of guns of many tons, and frantic teapoisoned persons cabled incoherently to Ashburton to refute tthe base calumny that had been cast upon the town. Accordingly a "public" meeting was held on Monday, composed principally: of local parsons and Poole, M.P. for Auckland West, the Irish-Australian who- spent five minutes m America and acquired the accomplishment of talking through his nose. Day, S.M., was invited to attend, but refused: to drag his official position m the mire of <vicious parsonioal vituperation.. * » ■ He spoke freely to a local reporter, howevei^ saying that the case before him at .-'fPimaru had been an extreme one, arid the experience respecting liquor gained by him as a magistrate m Ashiburton had generally prompted him : to conscientiously make the remarks to which the No-license party had objected. The opinion expressed by his Worship was directed only to the case which he had before him, and he had never intended it as a eflection oh, the working of. Nolicense m any district. The unfortunate woman was a dipsomaniac, and he believed she would look for liquor m heaven. It "was absurd for anyone to say that there was not a great deal of drinking •m Ashburton. Why, no fewer than 3000 notices of delivery of liquor to Ashburton residents had passed through the hands of the Clerk of the Court during the past six months, independent of quantities that had been imported m other ways. It was not for him, he said, to advance any opinion regarding the working .of No-license im Ashburton or any other similarly prohibited area, but he would like a commission appointed by the ' Govvernment to go thoroughly into the matter and obtain the opinions of medical men and others who were m a position to give unquestionable evidence bearing on the problem- "If the No-license party think that I made the remarits objected to for the purpose of general application it is perfectly at liberty to do so, and jf the cap fits the No-license party, it can wear it." The Oamaru footballers who were, m Ashburton some little time back, said Mr Day, freely stated that they bought a number of bottles "of whisky from sly-grog sellers, and when aj person witnessed liquor being consumed m this manner , he must believe the evidence of his own eyes. *• * ■ When the No-license cranks, met In the Oddfellows' Hall on Monday night the above remarks had been published, and the agitated reverends were fully seized of their significance. They came from a man whose daily experience m the courts enabled him to speaik with authority, and the apostles of tea, who 'had been m the habit of hitting out viciously and indiscreetly , • "were wholly unprepared for this Johnsonian crash on the point. They didn't disguise the fact that the meeting had been called for political purposes, "Pilot" Greenwood explaining that the, gathering was with the object of helping I>he cause at the pending New South Wales elections, when a No-license vote would be taken. The subsejq.uent talk, m the absence of argument, consisted mainly of abuse of a conscientious and painstaking magistrate who has probed deeply into the. horrors created by the introduction of liquor to the home, where, it 1 was not to be found under license. Brummy Poole was particularly verbose, outtalking the sin shifters with the ease acquired m the Wellington gas generator. All were more or less impassioned and filled with that pious zeal which makes of prohibition a monomania, and which would cheerfully: see its opponents burn^, at the stake or tortured with thumjb-screws. Notwithstanding the 3000 and more people, who had swankyi se"nit to th!em| m Ashburton, the Rev. G-. B. Inglis said he didn't know Of a single house m the electorate wihere he could get a drink, even supposing he wanted one. O'fr course. The rush to Me the bottle when the parson appears is % like unto the commotion caused by a bargain sale of haloes and harps m limbo— or the crush to get mon the last race. The ; small but select crowd passed sundry violent resolutions for shipment to New South Wales, but when the froth and smoke had cleared away the irrefutable facts mentioned by Magistrate Day remained about .the premises (m j ghastly nakedness, unclothed by sophisty or rhetorical trimmings. If 3000 notices of delivery of li^or passed through the court clerk's hands m six months, it is an, appalling record of boozing m the home, because there were only 6804 people on the Ashburton electoral roll at the last general election— that is, adults capable of swilling beer amd spirits. And these 3000 orders are merely supplies m bulk, respecting I which a declaration has to be made. iWhat about the thousands of bottles 'carried m every time Ashburtoh 'people return from a visit to a moist i electorate, and the immense quanti- ! ties of over-proof parsnip wine that 1 are consumed m the electorate ? Verily, for its population, Ashburton must be the most drunken place ' under the sun ; and no wonder the inhftib-i hints made strenuous efforts to

have lioensos restored so that the traffic might be placed under rigid inspection and control, and residents might not be reduced to the necessity of carrying the purge into their own homes, and lie about it, and hide it m secret places, and become members of an army of sneaks and hypocrites. At the last local option poll m Ashburton 3085 electors voted for the restoration of licenses and 2636 for the continuation of No-license, so that if the water pump push "were given the bare majority they are yelling for Ashburton would 'have licensed houses to-day. No-license has been tested there and found wanting. }