ASHBURTON SLY GROG.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12657, 20 November 1905, Page 2

ASHBURTON SLY GROG.

To the Editor,

Sir, —Mr. Palmer, the President of tho Licensed Victuallers' Association in Wanganui, read a speech on Saturday night which deserves to be preserved in somo less perishable form than street orations usually are. I am not going to attempt to reproduce the whole speech, but will try to give you the gist of what Mr. Palmer, in the guileleesness of his eoul ? treated the large audience to in Maria Place. A visitor to Ashburton, Mr. Palmer told us, went into a barber's shop to get a shave, and got it. As he was leaving ho was asked whether he didn't want anything else. No, he couldn't think of anything else. Didn't he want a whisky ? Ah, that was different, so he got a whisky, and, noting the locality of that barber's shop, he returned (for a shave, of course) four or five times in the day. There was another similar yarn about another (or perhaps the same) stranger who had a similar experience in a photographer's shop, and who returned to be photographed with startling frequency. How does this square with the written report furnish■ad. by tho commissioner sent down by tho "Lyttelton Times," who wrote as follows:—"A greasy room, a slatternly woman, down at heel, and possessing a scowl that not only lowered her face, but seemed to lower her whole body. Ona felt that her knee-caps were illplaced. A slouching man with a greasy hat and dirty beard. 'Town's quiet,' said the pressman. 'Yers,' said the man. 'And dry,' added tho visitor, j 'Yens,' said tho man again. The man with the dirty beard lit a pipe, and by-and-bya, having satisfied himself that tho newspaper man was not a pitfall for the unwary, he produced whisky —at least, ho said it was whisky. Ib tasted, liko liquid dynamite. In another placo that night the visitor purchased a bottle of case whisky for 7s. Gd. The seller in this instance was a ■scared man. The sale was transacted bohind a looked door, and the cork was drawn by tho light of a cigarette. At still another groggery beer was purchased. The seller was in his stockinged feet, and one of his big toea stuck out and demanded attention to the j dirt it had collected to itself. 'Gityerlieerdown!' snapped tfoa man so quickly that it sounded like the name of a .Russian admiral. 'Want another?' he asked. 'Well, yer better get out,' he said on getting a refusal, and the pressman got." No. sir, Mr. Palmer's yarns havo been furnished to him by somebody who has found it easy to pull hid nether extremity.—l am, etc., J. AITKEN.