TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VII, Issue 313, 23 July 1896, Page 10

TRADE TOPICS.

Estate duty has been paid on £610,469 10s lid as the value of the peasonal estate of Mr Henry Townshend, of Caldecote Hall, Warwick, J.P., formerly a partner in the firm of Samuel Allsopp and Sons, brewers, of Burton-on-Trent (whom he joined in 1846), and afterwards chairman of Samuel Allsopp and Sons, Limited, who died on 3rd March, aged 83 years. Prohibition in Maine (U.S ), as described in the New York Hevald : — “ Down in Maine, where Neal Dow thinks he has closed all the saloons, you can buy any kind of liquor yon prefer. The man in Bangor or Portland, or any other city or town in Maine, who does not know where to quench his thirst with the nrdent, must be a stranger, and stone blind at that.” The old, old story!

The Royal Commission appointed by the English House of Commons to enquire into the law governing the liquor trade in the United Kingdom has commenced its sittings. The commission consi-ts of eight Trade representatives, eight total abstainers, and eight neutrals. It is thought the commission will take two years before they are able to furnish their report. One of the passengers aboard the Monowai, ’Frisco to Sydney, on being interviewed in the latter city said : —“We had a temperance orator on board—the Rev. L. M. Isitt. Well, he called for me at the bar—you see that was my address on board —and he said to me, ‘ Just, think of all your sriends who have been killed by this dreadful whisky ?’ So I just said to him —‘ Why, up Dakota way there were a lot of friends of mine who never drank anything but water, and there was a dam burst, and the water drowned them all. Did you ever hear of whiskey drowning hundreds like that. ? Why, wherever this dreadful water gets about it kills thousands. Look way back there in China, it got round and drowned millions of people. You never heard of whisky killing off thousands like that. I’ll stick to whisky. Water is too dangerous.’ Well, he didn’t like it.” — The Spectator. It may surprise most of our readers to hear the annual production of beer in the United Kingdom is close upon 32,000,000 barrels. Earley is required to over 80 per cent. Unfortunately a large proportion is foreign importation. Chemical science has so failed to usurp the place of barley by any known method at present, and this does away with the theory that beer is to a large extent produced by chemical substitutes for malt. It is so far impossible to place before the public a sound, wholesome, and honest beer without a proportion of barley malt. It is well known the admixture of sugar, rice, and maize, to a limited extent, is beneficial, in successfully securing favourable results, as there are obvious defects in our English barley which necessitated a combination of this nature, and the brewer is by this process enabled to turn out a sparkling and less intoxicating article than it would be possible were English malt only employed. There are two leading brewers that use neither sugar, maize, or rice ; but they resort to the use of foreign barley, and the consequence is the same result accrues as though they used a limited addition of the malt adjuncts to which, we have referred. Is there an English brewer who can candidly say he only employs English barley mult alone ? Hop substitutes were more largely used a few years ago than at the present time ; but even then, as now. by a very limited number of small brewers, which is proved by the fact that the consumption of hops has not been perceptibly affected by this innovation. It is, therefore, patent to all that the recent storms in the teakettle as to the impurity of our national beverage are without foundation. —English Licensed Victuallers' Gazette.

In small hotels in Russia each guest is expected to bring his own bed-clothing. The Hotel Cecil, situated in the Strand, London, was opened on the sth May, by an inaugural banquet, under the presidency of Viscount Hardinge, and several hundred guests assembled. The splendour and magnitude of this gigantic building must be seen to be believed, when it. is officially stated that there are 1,800 servants employed, under the management of Mr Bertini, and over 1,000 rooms. The vast responsibility on the shoulders of this distinguished manager may be imagined from the magnitude of the undertaking. The cellars contain £50,000 value of wines alone. The erection of this huge and handsome pile marks the dawn of a new epoch for the long-delayed improvement of the Strand. The London County Council have voted no less a sum than £30,000 to assist the Cecil Hotel Company in getting Bills passed by Parliament for the removal of the unsightly block of buildings now partly intercepting the view of the hotel. A splendid panorama of the Thames and its surroundings can be obtained from the hotel, and no expenditure has been spared in decorating, both for beauty and comfort, this colossal palace. Everything speaks of splendour and success, and this enterprise must be classed as one of the great sights of London, and, in fact, the world. We understand that all rooms at the Hotel Cecil have already been taken.