SOBER TOWN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3892, 21 April 1937, Page 2

SOBER TOWN

PLYMOUTH’S RECORD LAST YEAR. Plymouth was the most sober town in England and Wales last year. Although the licensing hours were extended by half an hour daily in June, July and August, there were only 8:5 proceedings for drunkenness, compared with 111 in the previous year.

Statistics compiled from 22 towns and cities showed that proceedings for drunkenness in Plymouth worked out at .413 per thousand of the population Stoke-on-Trent was the next most sober town.

Commenting on the chief constable’s report, the chairman, Mr R. B. Johns, said that only twice before had there been less drunkenness in the city. Last year’s figure of 86 compared with 498 in 1915. The causes of this decline included improvement in licensed houses and a general improvement in social habits.

“The new conception of the public houso, not as a place for furtive and almost secret drinking, but as a frank, clean, open house of refreshment,” he added, “is in harmony with the altered conception of personal propriety and self respect. “A point to be noticed with special satisfaction is the smallness of the number of men of the services who come before this court or their officers on charges of drunkenness.”