ABOUT TOWN

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 523, 29 December 1888, Page 3

ABOUT TOWN

IS SUNDAY CLOSING A FAILURE ? Iv SEE by a London cablegram that 'an amendment to the Local Option Bill, empowering each district to legislate itself — ' in the matter of the Sunday closing of hotels, has been carried in the House of Commons.' I suppose : that means that in those districts where the Blue Ribbonites outnumber the people holding opposite views on the liquor question, the* Sunday closing of publichouses is to be enforced. For the information of such of my readers as . have never lived ;'••.- in*T_ondon, I, may as well state that the pubs ■-'• there are thrown open from 12 to 2, and 'again the evening from; I think, 7, until the usual vhour of closing. Ifi/J^:.,. - -:r* A '_'...',•:,-. ; : :*.-".*..*. .. ' '*- l *, '. .A- ... , ; p|&Wh>U.s^

quencher,' and keep them. There is no humbug,; no evasion of the law; no faint light seen burn ing behind closed shutters, suspiciously suggestive of spiritual refreshment going on withinNeither are parties of red-nosed men, with athletic breath, permitted to enter public-houses on their simple assurance that they are ' travellers.' The law is reasonable, aud therefore, it is in the vast majority of cases, obeyed. Here, in New Zealand, the law is unreasonable, and therefore it is set at defiance. I can imagine some sleek disciple of Sir William Fox going home and touring the Old Country. What glowing accounts would he not, in the innocence of his heart, give of ' the total abstinence movement in New Zealand ' ! ' Dear friends, 1 I think I h.ar him saying, with the parsonic twang which comes so natural to many of these gentlemen, ' dear friends in that bright young colony from which I come, Sunday trading has been put down ! Go where you will, through our cities you will find the public houses shut up, the doors fast, the blinds drawn down, no der-rink to be had for love or money until Monday morning. Is not this a blessed state of things ? Would that England might take a lesson from her child, and abolish Sundaytrading too !' # * # And yet what a farce this Sunday closing of hotels is ! I will venture to say that if that unsophisticated teetotaller you have just heard would make the rounds of the hotels in any New Zealand town, day or evening, on Sunday, but at night especially, he might knock and it would be opened unto him, and, providing his blue ribbon didn't catch the boss's eye, he would be free to enter and call for what he pleased. # # - # Since neither temperance lesson books nor temperance lectures will convince the majority of people that they are imperilling their immortal souls and ruining their worldly prospects by drinking a glass of beer or taking a nip of something ' short ' when 'so dispoged,' is it not better that they should be allowed to do this openly and without fear, during certain hours set apart for the purpose rather than that they should be encouraged to resort to ways that are dark and tricks that ate shady in order to liquidate ?