SUPPLYING DRINK ON A SUNDAY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3511, 12 August 1880, Page 2

SUPPLYING DRINK ON A SUNDAY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — For public information, may I enquire through your useful paper at what time on Sundays intoxicating drinks may legally be obtained at the various public-houses in town. Curiosity on this point becomes somewhat general when a stranger in New Plymouth, not even a bona fide traveller, so called, finds it not only possible but easy to get supplied with spirits before breakfast, again before church and after church before dinner, when, with some difficulty and indeed only with some friendly assistance, he manages to reach his lodgings in a state of stupid intoxication ; unable to test the possibilities of the afternoon and evening supply, though many others have done so very recently with similar results. The case alluded to above occurred but last Sunday, not in "Sleepy Hollow," Nelson, but in this veritable "Dreamy Flat" Taranaki. Strangers are unacquainted with the back-doors and sidedoors, and all other private means of ingress so well known and used by many of the old tipplers of the town, who boast of their cleverness iv thus evading the lynx-eyed watchfulness (?) of our exceedingly useful police force. Nor, of course, are the innocent publicans to blame if their irresponsible barmen inadvertently sell liquor at the wrong time. But we really should be informed if the hours named are the legal ones for making people drunk — not the comparatively harmless thing of supplying a glass to a sober person, but the permitting such an unlimited supply to one already the worse for drink. If in this instance there is a breach of law, it behoves the authorities to institute a searching enquiry into the matter, if not, and such bad laws are proved to exist, the knowledge may incite to some effort to amend them. Borough laws and bye-laws of all sorts arc published for the jmhlic benefit, and without doubt if you could favour your readers with an abstract of the Licensing Laws it would be very generally appreciated. — I am, &c, Inquirer.