"INVERKEGVILLE!"

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 72, 16 July 1914, Page 6

"INVERKEGVILLE!"

Three young men formed the subjects of an interesting case at Invercargill on Wednesday. They were charged with vagrancy, and with being illegally on licensed premises. Mr, Tipping fdefended the accused. The Southland Times, in a lengthy report, states that the Magistrate (Mr Thomas Hutchison) imposed fines of £5, in default a month’s imprisonment, in tvy.o instances, and £2 or a fortnight’s imprisonment in one catje. One witness said there were hundreds of keg parties around Invercargill. Ho was a married man, and was to have boon brought up that morning for failing to maintain his wife. He had earned £3 or £4 during the last three or tour months. He had had liquor while scene-shifting at the theatre, hut was not one of those concerned in the disturbance recently referred to in the papers. Mr Tipping said that it was common knowledge that a great amount of drinking went on in these places. Men who had rooms, or who belonged to a club, could go there and drink their liquor. Unfortunately, these men were not wealthy enough to belong to clubs, and bad to take their beer in tbo op'fin. If the licensing law introduced by Mr SeddoTi, which provided for no-license no-liquor, bad been brought into effeqt these things would not be carried on. This law had been objected to, and, as a result, the men were nqide victims of an unreasonable law. The defendants admitted having had the beer. He asked that they he dealt with leniently, as all the accused had work to go to. The Magistrate said that it was quite true that keg parties were a common institution, and the name “Invcrkegvillc,” as ho had once heard it termed, seemed a very appropriate one. Ths practice oi ccrsaming liquor on private property; w" 1 ." a reprehensible one, and must be pvt down, as there was in it great c:; : the property.