TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 441, 5 January 1899, Page 18

TRADE TOPICS.

The following yarn comes from the West Coast:—A swagger goes into one of the pubs, and asks for a drink of whisky. On being served he pours a little on his shirt sleeve, and after watching it for a moment shoves back the glass to the bar-tender with the remark, “ Here, give me something that will burn a hole; this stuff’s got too much water in it. ”

A statement was recently mac e at a meeting of tobacconists at Christchurch that forty-four million cigarettes were now imported annually. Thirty-seven million of these were of brands controlled by the American Tobacco Trust, and the remaining seven million came from the great English house of Wills. It is the fashion nowadays to endeavour to pile up statistics showing the alleged amount of crime and insanity caused by drink. If, however, genuine statistics could be drawn up showing how much both of them are due to a disordered state of the liver, some of our prohibitionist orators would lose their billets and be obliged to study medicine.

The liquor trade seems to be in a flourishing condition in Queensland. The report of the chief inspector of distilleries, laid before Parliament, shows that during the past year 109,000 gallons of spirits were locally distilled, being an increase of 7000 gallons over the previous year. Two hundred and eight thousand gallons of wine were made, and 4,780,000 gallons of beer. The imports of ales, wines, and spirits more than double these figures. Stimulants are good servants but bad masters, and there can be no question they are an advantage to man when properly used. Dr Ulllathorne, one time Vicar-Apostolic of N.S.W., and a frequent visitor to Norfolk Island during the convict days, bears remarkable testimony on the subject. While Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham he gave evidence on the convict system before a eommittee of the House of Commons. In it he attributed much of the evil amongst the transportees to the absence of alcoholic stimulants. The learned bishop was himself almost a total abstainer, so that his evidence is all the most remarkable.

We seem to have been cursed with the presence of a few clever pickvockets and spielers in Auckland lately, but they still have a few of the fraternity left in Australia as the following will show: —“The till at the Kyneton (Victoria) rA-frpshmerit rooms was robbed of about £8 recently by someone who evidently knew his way about. While Mr and Mrs McCartney (the proprietors) were at dinner two holes were broken in a window at the end of a room next the kitchen, and the bolt drawn which fastened it. To reach the till was then an easy matter. The robbery was, however, a most daring one, it being daylight—between one and two o’clock, in fact—and. a number of people about,” Wellington seems to have been passing through a baptism of fire during the last few few months, and the Trade have suffered particularly. Closely following on the Royal Oak Hotel fire comes the news of the total destruction of the Tramway Hotel at Newtown at half-past two-oclock on the morning of Friday last. The fire is supposed to have originated in the store-room, and was discovered by the barman, who quickly alarmed the household, but owing to the dense volumes of smoke which filled the passages the greatest difficulty was experienced in getting the inmates out. There were ten people sleeping in the house, and fortunately no lives were lost, but some of the escapes were very narrow. Mrs Annie Ryan was the licensee of the house, which was owned by Mr John Plimmer. The building was insured for £5OO in the Commercial Union, £250 in the South British, and £250 in the National. The contents were insured for £550 in the South British. Mrs Ryan was nearly suffocated by the smoke, and Miss Fitzpatrick had her arm broken in two places. For a long time it was thought that one of the female boarders had perished, but she was eventually found to have escaped safely. The prohibitionists have made considerable talk over the recent prohibition vote taken throughout the Dominion of Canada. The proposition for absolute prohibition was of course defeated, as every one expected it would be ; but the prohibitionists, as is usual, still claim a great moral victory, inasmuch as their figures show that there was a popular majority of some 13,000. They state that it was only in Quebec, where the people are of French descent, that the Trade was strongly entrenched, but that in every province where the people were of Anglo-Saxon descent the Trade was strongly undermined. This hardly seems to airee with the statistics that in Great Britain and Ireland alone 4,790,000,000 quartz of beer are consumed| annually, as against 840,000,000 in France, to say nothing of whisky, brandy, gin, and other spirits, and to leave entirely out of calculation the Australasian colonies and the United States, both essentially Anglo Saxon countries. France and French colonies, although by no means addicted to prohibition, are essentially temperate. Now the inferential argument that Anglo-Saxons as distinct from Frenchmen, are in favour of prohibition, is a puerile one to the last degree. Again, the latest advices from Canada state that a vast number of the people were so satisfied that the vote was a foregone conclusion, and that its being taken at all was merely to throw a political sop to the prohibition Cerberus that they never took the trouble to go to the polls. Prohibition will never obtain a freehold permanently in a country inhabited by Anglo-Saxons. We have too much regard for the liberty of the subject.

There is no necessity for an introduction to the little lady who is depicted below —we all know her :— She is always glad to see you, Always full of fun and jest, And somehow you get the notion, That she’s always at her best. If you feel a bit down-hearted, And your blood is running slow, It will quicken in a minute, If you have a drink with Jo. But don’t try to be too familiar, Keep a bridle on your tongue, Or you’ll get a quick reminder, “ Stop 1 I’m just a bit too young.” Still her eyes will sparkle quickly, O’er a saying that is bright, for her heart is full of humor, Bubbling up from mom till night. And we fellows who have known her— Known her from the long ago— Think the Royal Mail’s lost sometlring, If we miss a chat with Jo.

Chicago has started what is known as a “ nontreating club.” It was founded principally for travelling men, but already the idea has “caught on,” and its membership is counted in several other cities. The club motto is “When you want a drink take it, and don’t imagine you will offend anyone by not asking eight or ten to join you.” Its pledge is to wear the inevitable button, and “ not to treat anyone who is a member.’, “ Shouts for the crowd ” is a more expensive matter than standing a friend a glass or splitting a soda with a companion ; but man is essentially a social animal, as is illustrated by the invitation of the Irishman, who, between the intervals of a rough-and-tumble discussion with blackthorns and other weapons, asked his opponent, “What will ye take to wash, your dirty, lying tongue with ? ” It is a bit of human nature to stand a drink to a friend now and then ; we can’t give all our friends diamond pins in the hurry of busidess, but we can stand them a drink now and then—and we do - We don’t think that this kind of thing would become popular in New Zealand. We are too gregarious here, and a drink is not properly enjoyed alone someone must “ join you ” to give it a flavor.

In our last issue we gave a recipe for making Wassail. This week we give the ingredients of another old English drink known as “Lamb’s Wool,” a corruption of La Masubal. It derived its name from November Ist, a day dedicated to the angel presiding over fruit and seeds. Mix the pulp of half a dozen roasted apples with some raw sugar, a grated nutmeg, and a small quantity of ginger. Add a quart of strong ale made moderately warm. Stir the whole well together, and if sweet enough it is fit for use. It is sometimes served with sponge cakes floating in it. Another Old Country Christmas drink is “Oxford Bishop,” which is made as follows:—Make several incisions in the rind of a lemon, stick cloves in the incisions, and roast the lemon by a slow fire. Put small, but equal, quantities of cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice into a saucepan with half a pint of water. Let it boil until it is reduced one half. Boil one bottle of port wine ; burn a portion of the spirit out of it by applying a lighted paper to the saucepan*. Put the roasted lemon and spice into the wine, stir it up well, and Jet it stand near the fire ten minutes. Rub a few nobs of sugar on the rind of a lemon; put the sugar into a jug with the juice of half a lemon. Pour the wine into it, grate some nutmeg into it to sweeten, snd serve up with lemon and spice floating in it) Of course these drinks are more particularly adapted for cold weather, but they are essentially Christmas drinks in England. In our next issue we shall give a few recipes for summer weather drinks, and more especially adapted to colonial Christmases.

The following from the Melbourne Sportsman opens up a considerable field for argument: — “ One of the jurymen at the Ballarat Supreme Court sittings lately fainted while locked up with, his fellow-jurors considering a case. Neither water nor whisky was available, for some time. The Ballarat Star, a strong teetotal organ, commenting on the incident, says : ‘Had one of the j urymen been supplied with a pocket flask, the man would soon have been revived.’ After this - the sheriff ought to see that at least a decanter of whisky is provided in the rooms where juries consider their verdict. If that were done we would hear no more about the stupidity of jurymen.” We hardly agree with our contemporary that an unlimited supply of whisky is either-an aid or a necessary adjunct to the strict and impartial administration of justice. Carried out to its legitimate conclusion, this would mean that certain members of the trade would soon be applying for “jury” licenses, and the result mgiht be amusing, but it would be hardly satisfactory to the plaintiff and defendant. We can imagine the foreman, a man for the sake of illustration with an iron head and abnormal capacity for whisky, saying, “ What ; eleven in favour of conviction and only one against it I Ah, well, its my shout; liquor up, boys, and then we’ll talk it over,” and a few minutes afterwards, ‘ ‘ Still six of you holding out against my opinion ? Serve the gentlemen again, Thomas, and”—aside —“ make it strong this time;” and then, after a lapse of half an hour, punctuated by various drinks, “ Well, we’re all agreed, boys!” z answered by “Yes, hie!” By all means let them have all the liquor they want after the natural fatigue consequent upon prolonged jury duty, and if during the time of work any one faints, dose him with smelling salts, or send out for His Honor’s private flask, and have the medicine administered in the presence of two members of the Licensing Committee, a magistrate, and a prohibitionist lecturer, but don’t turn the nectar of the gods loose in the jury room, or the majority may abandon the worship of Minerva for that of Bacchus with disastrous results.