TUAPEKA LICENSING COMMITTEE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2286, 23 December 1897, Page 26

TUAPEKA LICENSING COMMITTEE.

(Ekom Our Own 'Cobuzspondknt ) Roxburgh, December 14

At the quarterly meeting of the Tuapeka Licensing Committee at Roxburgh on Tuesday five applira'ions for trans p ers were granted. Mr J. H. Wftigth (Albion Hotel) was granted a conditional license for 'the Jockey Club's races od New Year's Day.

The Cha'i'man said : The committee have Iwd under consideration a paragraph that appeared in the columns of the Tuapaka Times, which insinuated that the committee, whilst not having the courage to directly refuse certain licenses, had yet resolved that it be made a condition of any renewal that the houses licensed should be either renewed or subjected to" such extensive repairs as would ronko it nob worth the while of the liceusees to take out a license, and thus by indirect means to effect reductions in the number of licensed houses in the district. I am asked to state, and for myself desire to state, thab no such matter waß .ever debated or even referred to in the com mi tee, and that no such ideia has ever crossed the mind of a single member of the committee, nor has any member of the committee ever in conversation or otherwise given expression to' any such views. The committee are therefore at a loss to understand ;how any such paragraph ever appeared. Whatever the commit! e3 may do in regulating : the liquor traffic will be done openly and Aboveboard, and not secretly or by indirect methods.

In India there are 100,000 boys^and 627,000 girls under the age of 14- who are legally married,' while 8600 'boys aud 24,000 girls who have not attained the age of four are under macrage bonds as arranged by their parents,