TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 283, 26 December 1895, Page 13

TRADE TOPICS.

“After a lengthy trial of ‘prohibition’ the people of Waiwera are applying for a cemetery I” {Clutha- County Gazette.) A prohibited milkman is to be prosecuted for going to the back-door of a hotel with a milkcan. An exchange adds : —“ And we call this a free country ’. ” Persons charged with being drunk, and persons whom prohibition orders are required under the new Licensing Act, can under the amended law only be dealt with by the Stipendiary Magistrates. As usual at Christmas time, things are beginning to look up nt Palmerston North. Visitors pour into the Chicago of New Zealand at the festive season, and such hotels as the Phoenix, Clarendon, Commercial, Club, and Masonic (formerly Albion) are always well patronised, as they offer every comfort required by travellers. Lately .the Commercial Hotel bar has been re-arranged, and certainly is now one of the most conveniently fitted up bars on the coast; The Clarendon bar is qititb a work of art, as far as the wall-paper furnishing is concerned.

A Greek Catholic priest in a Hungarian town preached on temperance recently, and made his congregation swear that they would not touch spirits for three years. The publicans have protested to the Government against the proceedings. ' One of the vagaries of the Licensing Act A Maori woman living decently with a Maori man is a prohibited person under the Licensing Act, but a Maori woman living with a European can keep her drink as much as she likes. The Wellington Cab-proprietors’ Association now takes legal proceedings against any cab-driver who may be the worse of liquor while in charge of a cab. Temperance orator: —“Ah! Jones, my friend, if there were no public-houses you would not be in rags and out of work.” Jones :— “ No, I dare say not; but you would ! ” x A prominent prohibition caterwauler in Wellington told his audience a week or two ago that “ the drink traffic was like a mighty octopus sinking its gory fangs in the neck of the people.” Now there’s a'.s/wi7e if you like ; he might just as well have said-that the drink traffic was like a mighty leech kicking out the brains of its victims and prancing on their emancipated chests. But then can anyone expect coherency from a prohibition speaker. “It is a stock saying amongst the Prohibitionists, that when a man spent all his money in tin hotel tho publican “ fires him out.” Did it ever occur to these watery-brained numskulls that the fat, pious, tee-' otal landlord does the same thing ? If a man cannot pay his rent, out he goes, neck and crop, wife and children, into the street; and, in many cases, he even takes their clothing. Also, the parson will turn out his flock if they refuse to pay him ; likewise wo have known a Prohibit ion parson of this city invoke the curse of God on his congregation because they would not give him more pay. Some lawyers, also, devour the substance of the widow and orphan, and the usurer tears the food from the starving. In fact, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Salvation Army drummer they arc all after the almighty dollar, and more greedy thau the publican. “Go too, thou hypocrite, cast the beam out of thine own eye, then thou wilt see clear to take the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”— Wellington Weekly Herald. “The licensed victualler and the moderate drinker are having a bud time in New Zealand at present. Nearly every man’s hand is against them, and there are few to call them friend. I observe that the other dav in Dunedin one of the members of the Licensing Committee ‘heard’ that an applicant for a license had been drinking, and had been ‘having some words with his wife.’ Foolish, misguided publican ! A policeman was at once sent for him, a severe lecture was at once administered, and his application finally was adjourned until he came to a better frame of mind. The new Licensing Act, too, is severely moral. A penalty is imposed for selling liquor to any female Maori —unless she happen to be the wife of a European (in which case I suppose she is assumed to be drink-proof). If a prohibited person at any time enters or is found in any licensed premises he, as well as the licensee, is liable to a penalty, and any person who accompanies him into any licensed premises is also liable to be fined £lO. Thus is starvation tried as a radical cure for drunkenness. Curiously enough, too, it seems that although either a lodger or a bona fide traveller may purchase liquor at any time, the liquor so sold must be consumed personally by the tiaveller and by no other person. Unhappy lodger and thrice unhappy traveller ! To the permanent boarder is given the privilege of paying for another’s grog. Verily we live in a land of freedom. It would surely have been more simple and effective. to have enacted broadly that any person drinking any alcoholic liquor should be subject to a heavy fine unless he proved (1) that he was a bona fide traveller, and (2) that he had a Maori wife.” I take the above, which is well worth republishing, from the Otago Witness.