Loss by Fire

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6783, 21 September 1893, Page 3

Loss by Fire-

» InvercarGill, to-day. — At 5 a.m. B. Edwards' Kennington cutlery works were totally destroyed by fire. The building was insured for £125, stock and machinery £123 in the New Zealand office. The loss is estimated at £200 above the insurance. The industry, after years of labor, had just become established on a firm footing, but by the fire Mr Edwards is ruined.

Church of England Services — Sunday next: Gisborne, 8 a.m. (Holy Communion); 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. , Cauon Fox. — Advt. Mr H. Oberlin. Brown, pianoforte tuner, will be in Gisborne by the end of the month. —Advt. One fact is worth a column of rhetoric Thousands of facts iv absolute wear proves the positive merit of Hennessy's Boots. Ladies' High-leg Glace Kid Lace Boots (a beautiful Hue), 6s Gd'per pair. — Advt. Seeing Is Believing. — Purchase a packet of Arthur Nathan's "Reliable" Tea, and then you can judge whether it comes up to the description. " The Best Procurable " and only 2s and "?3 6d per lb. — Advt.

(Conlinutdfrom third f>nqe.) " Whisky and beer, and other alcoholic beverages." "And what can you show as the result?" " Well, you must take a cab and K o to the ccmctry, and we will show you tho graves of muiy who have been hurried to an untimely end from the use ot alcohol." Go to the gaols also. Mrt.arvuy, the Wellington gaoler, said that at lease 80 per cent, of the criminals come to him because of drink. Lunatics, hospitals, and poor houses tell the same tale. Auckland received from public house revenue £2,300, and spent in hospital and charitable aid £2400. The colony spent £300,000 on four items, crime, lunacy, hospitals, and charitable aid. Publicans were responsible for two-thirds of this expense, and so they found that they had nob a groat deal left of the £500,000 when they came to foot up both sides of the bill. Shrewd business men in England and America were prohibitionists, because they saw thafc it would pay them if the drink were swept away by increased prosperity of the people and consequent increased trade. In Nelson a tradesman found that in five years his bad debts amounted to £183, all traceable to drink. How ofteu the brewers put a man with £200 or £300 into a house, and when they had squeezed out of him all he possessed, throwing the human lemon on one side, they put in another. And the tradespeople suffered. They took their readymoney to the public-house and brought tho storekeeper their credit. For every pound that comes to tho colony for liquor thirty shillings is lost. Mr Isitt gave a graphic picture of children of the traffic, the children who wander about the streets of the cities, learning vice and becoming a menace to society, and of the besotted drunkard man and woman. The prohibitionists did not want to force closing of the hotels against the will of the people; they only asked that the people should have the right of saying whether they would have public houses or not. It they closed the houses against the wish of the people it would only mean a reaction against them. He believed it an unfailing device in war to find out what the enemy did not want and then to do it. He believed in partial prohibition, but Mr Louisson, the brewer of Christchurch said that if they closed only the retail places there would be ten times the drinking, and that sly grog selling would be rampant. He asked where they would get their liquor from ? They would get it from exactly the same place as the houses of ill-fame now got it from -from the brewery. If the brewers really thought that partial prohibition would mean increased drinking, surely we would find them going straight for Prohibition. Prohibition was not confined to America. There were 1500 centres of partial prohibition on British soil. Lord Claude Hamilton said of a district in the County Tyrone, Ireland, with 10,000 people, that before prohibition it needed the services of 15 policemen, but now had none at all. The lecturer spoke of the Liverpool suburb of loxteth, with 60,000 people, which, since it closed the retail houses, had reduced its poor rate from 2s 6d to Sd and Is. There were many other instances Prohibition had been fifty years in existence in M.iine, and he quoted from the Governors of States in Maine, Kansas, and lowa, stating the wonderful changes in the morality and prosperity of the various districts. He admitted that there would be sly-grog selling to the extent of one-tenth the present sale. They had laws against stealing and other crimes, aud yet there was crime, and so with Prohibition there would be sly-grog selling. There was that now. Could a man get a drink after 11 o'clock at night or on Sundays in Gisborne ? (laughter). In hundreds of public houses they had the lambing down process. Every drink sold to a drunken man was illicit liquor. Publicans said, " How those parsons bleed you working men." Did thsy ever hear of a working man going to the parson with his cheque of £20 or £30, and saying, " Here, keep it till it's done." (laughter). One tenth of the liquor sold at present in licensed premises was sly grog. Some asked, " What about the liberty of the subject ?" Some day we would have building regulations in Gisborne, and if he came with his timber and shingles to put up a wooden building, the tyrannical mayor and councillors would prevent him. Or if he brought a ship load of kerosene, and wanted to put it in a store in the middle of the town, the tyrannical Council would say, " Young man, no you don't." If he rode his bicycle on the footpath in Christchurch, and was ever bo careful not to ride over anybody, he would be fined 12s and costs, and the public would say, " Sarve him right." True liberty and freedom was that which brought the wellbeing of others. Votes of thanks to the Chair and to Mr Isitt, terminated the meeting.

The New York World says :— If football becomes the prevailing sport, every newspaper will be obliged to have its war correspondent. — A writer in the Young Alau states that many have been the murmurs and considerable the complaints against rough play in English football matches, but, compared with the American game, football as played in the " old country " is very nearly as mild as lawn tennis. From the commencement of the inter-collegiate games to the final game for the championship played on Thanksgiving Bay, every prominent newspaper in America published reports of ciippled players. Within a period of less than three weeks thirty-seven casualties were reported among the players of Princeton College alone. A farmer at Oroua (Manawatu) has shipped a large number of cattle to Canterbury this year, for which he has received ou an average £15 a head. " Why, man, who on earth is your tailor ?" was Colonel Fox'a remark to a AJaoriland volunteer who, as be stood in the ranks, looked as if his uniform had been "flung" on. A laugh ran along the ranks, in which the captain of the company did not join. Next day the captain resigned. He was the " regimental tailor."'— Bulletin. The New York Sun informs a correspondent that it recpaires 2000dol and three months' time to see the World's Fair. Ostrich taming is a yery profitable induatry in Africa, where it is computed there are over 150,006 tame birds. At Crewe County Court, John Stelfox* Manchester, sued John Mottram, Leeds, for 70s. The debt was an old one. The defendant was seventy-five years of age, and received parish pay. The Registrar enquired if the plaiutiff pressed for an order. .Plaintiff did so. The Registrar said the debtor must pay a penny a year, the first penny to be due July, 1859. (Much laughter).