CHOPS & CHANGES

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 528, 6 September 1900, Page 19

CHOPS & CHANGES

At the Mount William, Victoria, gold rush a number of shanties were raided by the police, and a large quantity of beer and spirits seized.

New Zealand revenue for 1899 was £5,258,228, this year it is £5,590,396, and, with other receipts added, totals up to £5,699,618. A new club called the “Cosmopolitan,” was recently opened in Wanganui. It succeeds the Working Men’s Club.

Applications for the position of chief steward to the Auckland Working Men’s Club close at noon to-morrow.

It is rumoured that the police believe there are several illicit stills in operation in the ranges between Wellington and Palmerston North.

The Otago football team were put up at Mr John Morrison’s Criterion Hotel, Albert-street. Needless to say, they were well looked after. A petition has been presented to the House, to the effect that the House will refuse to make any changes in the present laws for the regulation and control of the liquor traffic.

The Customs duty for August shows a decrease on the whole, as compared with August of last year. The net Customs duties were £48,474 Is 8d compared with £51,972 19s 6d. The beer duty was £1,373 15s 4d against £1,283 17s, x The first mention of the cultivation of hops* occurs in 768 a.d., when King Pepin gave the monks of St Devis certain hop gardens (Humularias), but hops were not used in beer until the 14th century. The Wellington football team were very comfortably put up at the Royal Mail Hotel during their recent visit to our city. Mr and Mrs Scott excelled themselves by the excellent menu they provided for the dinner on the evening of the match.

It is rumoured that Mr and Mrs Melton, late of the Mangawai Hotel, intend to shortly return to ective business again and that they are negotiating with Mr John Davidson for the purchase of the Kaukapakapa Hotel. An inquest was held re the Kohukohu Hotel fire, the jury returned a verdict to the effect “That the fire started in the living room, and that there is not sufficient evidence to prove how it originated.”

In last week’s issue the name of the proprietor of the Mercer Hotel, Mercer, was spelt Haslet instead of Hallett. Mr Edward Hallett has been so long at Mercer, and is so well and favourably known, that I fell sure his many friends will be glad to know that he is still in command.

The late steward of the Working Men’s Club, who appeared last week at the Supreme Court to answer a charge of misappropriation of fundi, pleaded guilty, and was admitted to probation for 12 months, and ordered to pay the amount of the defalcation £52 10s 4d, together with 14gs, the costs of the prosecution, within six months. Messrs Tretheway and .Anderson have had a very short experience of hotel keeping comfort. It is only a couple of months since they took over the Kokukohu Hotel from Mr Tom Enwright. News has now been received that the hotel and stock has been damaged to the extent of £4OO, their loss is covered by an insurance policy in the Norwich Union. A writer in the Weekly Chronicle who claims to have travelled over many parts of New Zealand, penetrating many of its “ back blocks,” says he has found that wherever he had to put up at an “ accommodation ” house he has received no accommodation whatever. Badly cooked food, miserably bad beds, often they were most uninviting,'even to a tired wayfarer, and so no ad infinitum But where you make your halt for the night at an hotel, there as a rule you find decent food, good beds and the rest. Moral — Either stringent police supervision of all these sort of houses in the King Country, or grant them licentes.