Prohibited Persons in Hotels.

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 895, 22 February 1896, Page 3

Prohibited Persons in Hotels.

Some unjust and unequal legislation against hotel-keepers has been devised by zealous tinkerers with oar licensing laws, bat for downright stupidity and utter unfairness, the one relating to the supply of prohibited persons with liquor takes the cake. Consider for one moment the duties and responsibilities of the publican in this matter. When a prohibition order is granted against any person, the name of the individual is supplied to the hotel-keepers of the district, and they are held liable, under a heavy penalty, and a probable endorsement upon their license, if they supply him with liquor. But no means are provided to enable the publicans to identify the ' prohibit.' So great is the anxiety of our legislators not to hurt the drunkard's feeling's that they refuse to photograph him and supply his picture to the hotels. They also decline to compel him to wear any distinctive badge. And yet his name is not printed on his hat-band, or across his forehead, or even on his boots. How, then, is the publican to recognise him if he chances to be a stranger ? This is the problem that the publican has failed so far to solve, though to his own unhappiness he knows full well that every time he serves a strange customer, he runs the risk of a heavy penalty, and a still heavier black mark against his license, which latter may operate eventually to the ruin of his business.

My own sympathies are strongly with the cause of temperance reform, bat I fail to recognise that any pood purpose will be accomplished by a crude and illogical law of this kind. It is an axiom of British law that there can be no offence without intent. What intent to do wrong can there be if the hotel-keeper is unaware that his customer is a prohibited person ? And how, in the name of common sense, is he to find this out without some means of identification ? The whole thing is utterly absurd. Even if a publican becomes exceptionally cautious, and places one of a group of men who comes into his house for a friendly drink under a rigid cross-examination, how quickly he would lose his trade. Or, again, assuming, for the|sake of argument, that he suspected a stranger who happened not to be a prohibit, and refused to supply him with liquor, is it not patent that he would make himself liable for a breach of the Licensing Act in another direction, by refusing to supply refreshments, and would thus become liable to a substantial penalty ? Verily, the way of even the conscientious publican is like that of the transgressor — hard — very hard.

The injustice of the law was emphatically demonstrated by a case in Christchurch the other day, in which it was shown that the accused hotel-keeper had been supplied with as many as sixty or seventy notices of prohibited persons, and of these he pleaded that he had acquaintance with only eighteen or twenty. Consequently, forty to fifty at least were absolute strangers to him, and yet, without any facility being afforded him to distinguish them, every time he served one or the other of the forty or fifty he was making himself liable to penalties that might deprive him of his business and ruin him financially. Mr Beetham, S.M., viewing the matter in this common-senae light, emphatically declined to convict, even although the offence had been fully proved. He said he would first require to be satisfied that the landlord knew the man he was serving was a prohibited person. The Prohibitionists will shriek out their fury against Magistrate Beetham and the Government when they read of this decision, and yet it was a fair and reasonable one.

- Mr Beetham also laid it down, in giving judgment, that prohibited persons should be compulsorily photographed. If a person

were so absolutely lost to decency as to make himself a subject- for . prohibition, raining his health, ruining his family, and ruining his substance, it seemed idle to allow any false sentiment to prevent bis being photographed. Some steps certainly should be taken for the protection of holders ot licenses. This puts it very neatly. The man who is content to reel about the streets, soaking in one hotel and then in another, is entitled to very scanty consideration. He is not ashamed to see himself constantly in hotel bars. Then he has no reason to expire with shame because his photograph is constantly there. In any case, it is a faulty and weak-kneed system at best under which habitual drunkards are at largo at all. The time will come, and that speedily, when they will be dealt with as our insane are, i.e., placed in asylums where their permanent cure may be wrought.

— That a thing of beauty is not always a joy for ever — a fine complexion, for example.

— That Constables Luke McDonnell and Oliphant didn't enjoy the Premier Picnic. Too much hard worrck and abuse.

— That recent inquests go to show that a boarded-out child has a three-to-one chance of obtaining ' a harp ' over their more lawfully-begotten competitors in the race of life.

—That in the streets of Kaitangata may be seen a blind man with his wife riding a tandem bicycle. She sits in front and steers. The old man is the motor, but ' he can't see it.'

— That the Government have declined to interfere in the little trouble between the seven elderly young bathers, of aristocratic nakedness fame, and Stipendiary Magistrate Northcrof t. The opinion of the Premier was that it was quite a private matter. On the contrary, however, if more privacy had been observed, there would have been less trouble.

— That James Eae looks quite angelic with his whiskers shaved off. — That the tom-cat has no xoyal blood, and yet he's the prince of wails. — That another young bowler was booked for the Ponsonby Club last Sunday. Will Kirker win him over ?

— That a man's sins will find him ont, but not as quickly as hie wife.

—That Fred Baume and Alf . Whitaker are in doable harness. It will be a tough contract that this pair can't pull the legal coach through.

— That it's really wonderful how the Ponsonby bowlers survive the day after some of the ' home-made scones, and after-noon-provided tea.'

— That ' the man with the scythe ' is putting in his typhoid sickle far and wide this season in Auckland. It all comes of having ' dirt in the wrong place.'

— That the Government require the services of Licensing Inspectors who are capable analysts, at a salary of £150. They will not be appointed a day too soon.

— That Mr Muir, not content witii aspiring to the chairmanship of the Board of Education, is said to_ be/ prospecting ' Sir Maurice O'Rorke's electorate, with a view to jumping his claim at the next general election.

— That Tom Cotter is learning to ride a bicycle ; not for the Bports, though, girls. You'll miss his smile in silks. — That Frank Whittaker. would burst if his month was shut for 24 hours; so would the Stock Exchange. — That Edwin Harrow has come back from Africa with his pockets full of diamonds, and a little present for Henry Brett. — That the Auckland Bowling Club (the parent club) has knocked the stuffing out of the sister clubs in the Tournament practice matches. — That a well-known Aucklander who ' struck it ' during the boom has given it as his opinion that very few men can make money and friends at the same time. — That the Governors of the Prince Albert College Girls' High School (Wesleyan) are running it on the broad lines. The two teachers appointed are, one a Presbyterian, and the other a Baptist. — That the machinery and plant for working the quicksilver mines at Ohaeawai will be out from Home in the course of a week or so. Make way for the foreign capital. —That Mr Monk intends to contest Waitemata again, in order to square up matters with Eliza, and that Mr Massey will return to his own district and confront ' the Majah.' — That Will Hugo's last song was ' Leave Those Golden Gates Wide Open.' That night he died in Masterton from what were believed to be injuries received in a drunken brawl. — That the race of the day atMotutapa last Saturday that didn't come off was the Mayor and ex-Mayor'B race. W. Crowther, M.H.R ,felt very fit, but Jimmy Holland wasn't on. — That ' the only original shopwalker,' whose eccentricities on the mighty deep were a source of anxiety to some Aucklanders recently, has retired into private life. He never smiled again, but Pike smole. — That it was a pleasing spectacle the other day, as the Sydney steamer swayed up to the end of the Queen-street wharf, to see Grattan Biggs looking benevolently over his spectacles as the Auckland public gathered there. — That Alec Alison soon put the Customs Officials in the shade on Saturday in regulating traffic at the Premier Picnic. There's a bit of difference between regulating and obstructing. — That the Hon. Wm. McCullough, M.L C, might have his name, crest, and motto engraved on the base of the ' Highland Mary ' statute. It's quite on the cards they think him a colonial * dook ' in Scotland. — That the silence of both the daily papers on the subject of the £130 debt incurred by the City Council for printing the reasons why Dr. Laishley should be knighted, is very significant. Such independent papers, both of them. — That some young ladies are advertising for 'life partners' through a matrimonial agency — a leap year privilege. As the ' no liability ' principle has proved so popular in matters mining, why not try it in matters matrimonial ? — That a well-known publican, late of Kawakawa, will shortly apply for a divorce from his wife, the co-respondent being a Government Life Insurance agent travelling the North on the ' Sweet Marie ' ticket. So, at least, the Luminary says. — That ' honesty is the best policy * does not apply to tobacco robberies. Fifty larcenies of tobacco have taken place from Auckland shopkeepers in two years, and every attempt of the police to get a chew or a pipeful of ' birdseye ' from the pilferers has ended in smoke. — That bowling is advancing by leaps and bounds at the Empire City. A fourth club, called ' the Victoria,' has just been formed in the neighbourhood of Mount Victoria, in the eastern quarter of the city. Mr Molineaux, bank manager, is likely to be its first president. — That the only suspicious person found in the local hotels last Sunday by the publicans' vigilance committee was a youthful constable, who had evidently had a glass too much. It is very hard if the law cannot have its throttle moistened on a sultry Sunday. But who was the constable ? — That adroit attempts have been made by the Siamese Twins at Howick and by the municipal authorities to ' draw out ' Dr Emily Brainerd Ryder on the CD. Act. The doctor's views are locked up in her own breast, and though she has lived for years in Vienna and New York, wild horses wouldn't draw them from her. Ask her about 'The Little Child Wives of India,' and she'll pan out directly.