CHOPS & CHANCES

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 447, 16 February 1899, Page 19

CHOPS & CHANCES

r The public of Victoria are showing a strong ■desire for an amended Licensing Act there Mr Alrers will do the catering for the Licensed Victuallers’ Picnic on March Bth. ' Stated that Bree and Co., of London, bottle a thousand gallons of Bass a week. An American syndicate proposes to monopolise the Cuban tobacco output ata cost of £8,000,000 sterling. " Efforts are being made by the Trade in ‘England for a remission of th« increased duties on spirits and beer made in 1890, At Bulawayo, South Africa recently a magistrate fined two Europeans £4OO each for selling liquor to the natives. One of our publicans gets his fowls, milk, and bacon from his own farm, prettily situated about seven miles out of town. Not a bad idea that. The recent fire which partially destroyed the Wharf Hotel at Greymouth happened very unfortunately for Mrs Gireeking, who had taken the hotel over but a short time previously. Both adult’s and children’s tickets for the Licensed Victuallers’ Picnic are now procurable from the various proprietors of hotels throughout Auckland and suburbs. The Lord Chief J ustice of England on the liquor question:—“Temperance, though it can do more good than any conceivable legislation, cannot be brought about by repression.” The Brisbane (Queensland) Commissioner of Police favors Sunday trading within limited hours, as without it bogus clubs were formed and liquor was sold just the same. The Masonic Hotel, Cuba Street, Wellington, which has recently been renovated throughout, has passed into the {hands of Mr Charles Cress, late of Marlborough and Wairarapa. Mr James Aitken has taken over the Empire Hotel, Invercargill, which for the last twentytwo years has been conducted by Mr Thomas Whitaker The Nag’s Head Hotel, in Cuba Street, Wellington, near the Opera House, has changed hands, and is now being conducted by Mr J. S. Palmer. A Victorian exchange states that the police in Melbourne are at present taking advantage of the bar-door clause to seriously harass hotelkeepers, and make that calling almost impossible. Active preparations are going on for the Licensed Victuallers’ Picnic, which takes place on March Bth next. Tickets are nofir on sale by the different hotel proprietors. Tickets for the Licensed Victuallers’ Picnic on March Bth will be sold at 4s for adults, and Is for children five to twelve years of age. Tickets include lunch and afternoon tea. The employees of the Masonic and Criterion Hotels, Napier, played a cricket match on the Recreation Geound there on February 7. The Criterion team won by one run. The result of a recent local option poll in Mooroopna (Victoria) is that fourteen hotels have been closed, which leaves fourteen still open in the district. The Masonic Hotel, at Kawakawa, has been transferred from Mr J. Keightley to Mr W. Baker. The latter gentleman is a son of the popular Captain Baker of the Devonport Ferry Company. They are trying very hard in New South Wales to amend .the Licensing Act so as to deal with bogus clubs. We suffer from that sort of thing in New Zealand, and several of our so-called clubs need looking into. Mr Samuel Hyslop, a member of the Royal Commission on the licensing question (England) in speaking at a Trade dinner recently, said “ that an enormbns power was to be found in combination for defence, not defiance.” Mr Chamberlain has informed the Aboriginal Protection Society that Great Britain is pressing France to subject her citizens in the New Hebrides to the same restrictions regarding the sale of liquor as British residents. T. Kiely, an old' Ashburton man, has just taken over Tattersall’s Hotel in Cashel Street, Christchurch. Tattersall’s is a well-known hotel, centrally situated, and a favorite house of call.

At a recent meeting of the United Licensed Victuallers’ Association of New South Wales it was stated that an analysis of the voting on the Sunday trading question, showed a clean majority of the Assembly in favor of Mr Copeland’s measure.

We regret to chronicle the death of Mrs Maria Hill, wife of a well-known hotel-keeper at Winton. The deceased lady was found dead with her head and shoulders in a bath of water. She was subject to fits, and it is thought was seized with one while wringing out towels. Mr James Munro (Victoria) has written to the “Inebriates” Board telling it how to remove drunkenness. “ Just abolish alcohol,” he says. This is on all fours with the reformer who suggested as a remedy that they should kill off all the known drunkards in batches.

The alterations in the Commercial Hotel, Shortland Street, have not been completed within the time originally contemplated, so we are unable to give particulars of the improvements, as we had intended to at the present time. Work, however, is now being rapidly advanced, and Mr Kidd hopes soon to have everything in apple-pie •order. ■ .

The recently-published balance-sheet of the Mildura (Victoria) clubs show them in a flourishing condition. That “prohibition” settlement still leads the way in consuming more alcoholic refreshment per head than any other township of its size in Australasia. Mr John Reid, of the Messrs Reid Bros., has very courteously offered the use of the island of Motutapu for the Licensed Victuallars’ Picnic on Wednesday, March 8, and expressed himself as willing to afford every convenience possible to the promoters. Mrs Batley, of the Carlton Hotel, Papanui Road, Christchurch, was recently married to Mr F. Davy, who was for twenty years in the stores of Sclanders and Co., and knows what is good liquor and what is not. He will now be licensee. Judging from ous exchanges, the consumption of beer in Ballarat, Victoria, fell off considerably during the month of January, as the excise duty collected at the local treasury was but £lBl2, as again Nt. £2766 for the same month of the previous year. We understand that Mr John Vale, the Victorian temperance enthusiast, intends starting on a crusade throughout Queensland. The spectacle of Mr Vale on a hot night in the tropics urging his perspiring hearers not to drink should cause a rush for the nearest “ pub.” Cue of our unmarried publicans, on hearing that his brother licensed victuallers intended taking their wives and children to the proposed picnic, said with a resigned air, “ Well, I shall have to borrow a couple of children somewhere, for I intend going, and I want to be up-to-date.” The following recipe for a gin sling is worth recollecting: — If your friend’s an awful grumbler, With powdered ice you’ll fill his tumbler, Half a lemon sliced, atd sugar you crush, With a glass of gin into it you then rush; Let him drink it up with the help of a straw, And soon you’ll find him crying for more. The Parisians are nothing if not up-to-date. They have a variety of peculiar drinks in the lively French city, but the latest reported is unique in the extreme, as it is nothing more nor less than petroleum. It induces a peculiar form of intoxication, which causes the most hopeless state of melancholy, frequently ending in madness. The inhabitants of that much-talked-of prohibitionist settlement, Mildura, in Victoria, have at last, through their Council, decided to take a poll as to the introduction of the Gothenburg system in the district. Why not go the whole, hog ? Jhe Gothenburg system has been proved a failure so far, for it is neither one thing nor the other. At the approaching election in Queensland strong efforts will be made to secure limited Sunday trading. It is stated that a majority of the candidates will be returned pledged to that reform. South Australia already has this boon, New South Wales is in a fair way to secure it, and now it looks as though it were only a question of time in Queensland. Mr Harry Wright, the secretary of the Licensed Victuallers’ Association in Queensland, states that although the body had been in existence for fifteen or twenty years, its efforts had been spasmodic until the beer tax was imposed in 1897, when the publicans woke up to the necessity of organisation. Our publicans in Auckland should take this to heart and act before they suffer through continued apathy. The publican’s booths for the Otahuhu Trotting Meeting, which takes place at Potter’s Paddock on Saturday,’February 18th, Wednesday, the 22nd, and Saturday, the 25th, were sold on Friday last by Mr John Churton for £lOl to Mr Donovan, of the Exchange Hotel, Onehunga. The refreshment booth was bought by Mrs McIntosh for £3