TRADE TROPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 518, 22 November 1900, Page 18

TRADE TROPICS.

At the present time the stock of well-matured wines..in the Glen Var cellars is very large. Producing a pure grape wine of excellent qualityin large quantities the Glen Var Company is justly entitled to the position it claims—the premier wine producing company in the colony. Searle’s Hotel, at the corner of Lambton Quay and Sydney-street, Wellington, isbeing extended. When completed, this hotel will have a frontage to a whole block of the quay. The Willis-street frontage of the Empire Hotel is in the hands of the contractors. Additions to the White Swan Hotel are nearly completed, and the reinstatement of the Albion Hotel, which was recently gutted by fire is being proceeded with. The Glen Var Wine Company’s exhibit at the Auckland Agricultural Show was one of the most attractive stalls in the grounds. The collection of wines was admirable in point of quality, and excellent in variety. No wine of 1900 vintage was shewn by the Glen Var Company, because such new wine cannot really be judged. For the wines on view the company gained a first prize and a gold medal. It is very satisfactory to find the Glen Var products are growing in popularity. They are sound and wholesome, as well as being first-class in flavour and bouquet. This industry of wine making is still young, but there is little doubt that it will ere long become of vast importance to the colony. The brewing trade generally gets into fewer hands every year. The diminution in the number of late years has been caused by amalgamation of several small breweries into large companies. Since 1879 the number has fallen from 22,278 to below 7000, The Inland Revenue authorities do not object, for the charging and collection of the duty is generally facilitated, while the beer brewed shows an increase. For the year ended March 31st, 1900, the net receipts of beer duty in the United Kingdom were £12,345,150 as against £9,781,398 ten years ago. Of this amount £11,887,923 went into the Exchequer, and £457,227 was set aside for “local taxation accounts.” Well may Lord Salisbury set his face against any tinkering legislation that would interfere with such a lucrative source of National revenue

A lady shareholder at a meeting held at Blackburn, of Dutton t s Brewery Company, was one of the sharpest critics of the company’s financial policy. In a report submitted it was stated that certain houses ought to have been purchased by the directors, Dissatisfied with the chairman’s explanation on this matter, the lady vigorously exclaimed: “You want more women at these meetings to criticise your work,” and she went on to argue, amid laughter, that directors ought to increase rent and the price of beer. In connection with a suit that was brought by a waiter against a Wellington hotelkeeper, Mr W. R. Haselden, S.M., made reference to the frequent disputes that arise through the failure of hotel proprietors to take receipts from servants when paying them their wages. “It would be very little trouble,” said His Worship, “ for hotelkeepers to get signatures of servants to a pay-sheet; and such a course would undoubtedly avert a lot of disputes which were now customary in the Trade, and which were usually brought before the Magistate’s Court for ventilation.” A despatch from Ottawa to the New York “Sun” says that an interesting experiment is now in progress, which, if successful, will have an important effect upon the use to which one of the chief products of the (Canadian wood, is put. It is well known that one of the main endeavours in the manufacture of rum was the preservation of the flavour of the sugar cane. This has been successfully accomplished. It is now suggested that a Canadian rum can be made from the sap of the sugar maple, which grows in nearly every part of the Dominion. Those interested in the project say that a wholesome liquor can be distilled from the sap of the maple which will retain all the delicate, sweet flavour which makes pure maple sugar so popular. To this end an experiment is now being carried on in Quebec, with the consent of the Department of Inland Revenue at Ottawa.

“My Change, I Think.” —“One more little dodge you may like to know of,” said a genial detective who had previously supplied interesting information “It is now being extensively ‘ worked. ’ A gentlemanly man is at your elbow when you are taking some refreshment or buying a cigar. Your purchase comes to say, four pence, you have put down sixpence and want twopence change. This, as you think, is placed upon the counter. You are about to pick it up, or perhaps you are buttoning up your coat, when the stranger says, ‘My change, I think, sir,” and collecting it he shows it to be eightpence — a sixpence and two pennies. “Oh, 1 thought it was mine, ’ you say, ‘ I want twopence.’ The stranger nods pleasantly and goes out. When you : do ask for your change, the man behind the counter looks suspiciously at you. It was your twopence, after all; but the other ‘ customer ’ had neatly added the sixpence, as he picked it up. Look out for this.” Mr S. Hooper has purchased the Midhurst Hotel from Mr H. Julian. . . Mr and

Mrs Taylor, of Whangarei, have purchased the Criterion Hotel, New Plymouth, and will resume control in a few days. . . Mrs Tabor is having an extensive addition made to the White Hart Hotel, New Plymouth. . . I regret to record the death of Mr H. Hammond, who was well and favorably known as an hotelkeeper in New Plymouth. The last house Mr Hammond had was the Red House, and he retired some two years ago, and had been living privately up to the day of his death, and it seems that an ingrowing toe nail on which a heavy-weight had dropped set up a sort of blood poisoning, which gradually affected the leg. It was deemed advisable last week to amputate the leg. The operation was successfully performed, but the shock proved too much for the patient, who gradually sank and passed away the same night. The funeral last Thursday was very representative, the Masonic fraternity, of which body the deceased was a leading member, being greatly in evidence. The deceased leaves a wife and several grown-up children. —(Taranaki correspondent). I suppose it is pretty well-known in the Trade that the Eerste Fabrieken Hatherley Distillery have hitherto enjoyed practically a monopoly of the spirit trade in the Transvaal, the wily Kruger having granted a concession for a good round sum, says a writer in the “London L.V.G.” The question is what position this company will hold in the future ? I note that the directors say that ‘ ‘ so soon as the military authorities consent to relax their hold on the country, the business of the company can be resumed, and an era of prosperity may be anticipated ” Possibly; but it is safe to say that the exclusive right to distil spirits in the country will no longer prevail, and that competition will have to be faced. It is significant that the Grand National, the NorthWestern and Frascati’s Hotels in Johannesburg have been refused a license because their proprietors have been in league with the Boers. Thera will be a grand opportunity for many enprising English Licensed Victuallers in the Transvaal when the war is over.

Our namesake, the “Wine and Spirit Gazette, of New York, professes to answer the question Why less beer is drunK in the United States ?” It asserts that the U.S. Brewers’ Association in convention assembled at Atlantic City recently has gained a record, stating that the decrease in the production of beer during the last year, amounting to a little less than one million barrels, is due to the war taxes Further, “While it is true that the liquor traffic is staggering under a heavy burden of State, Municipal and National taxes, may it not be said with equal truth that this decrease in the consumption of beer is due to the general public distrust in the purity of American beer, and to an increased consumption of light wines retailed from the barrel, and to the untaxed cider saloons which have become quite an institution. It is a fact that California wines have entered into active competition with beer.” We are not sorry to have to take a similar view to our contemporary. Even in London grave complaints are made as to the quality and purity of much of the beer supply, and were it not that light wines are comparatively so much dearer the position of the former might be seriously affected.—“ Harper’s Weekly.”

The Duke of Argyll, better known as the Marquis of Lome, is owner of the Roseneath inn, pier and ferry, in Scotland, and he has just made an appeal to the Dumbarton Assessment Committee against the valuation of the same . It appears that the pier and ferry had previously been valued at £l9l 12s, the land at £lO Bs, and the inn and stable at £4B. For some reason or other not stated, the license had been taken away from the inn, and His Grace had transformed it into a convalescent home. Presumably the success of the inn and the pier and ferry were bound up together, for the whole property has now been let to a Mr Macphee for £5O, and the Duke has been successful in getting the valuation reduced to this

Of all the manifestoes put forward .’"by the various Trade societies, that issued by the Rugby Licensed Victuallers’ Association is by far and the most practical (says the “ London L.V Gazette.” “ Freedom with sobriety ” is their motto, and they give facts and figures on important points connected with the Trade for the guidance of the electors. Take the question of Sunday closing, for instance, which the Association regards as nothing more than Sabbatarian cant. How do Scotland and Wales compare happy England ? With no Sunday closing, England has a decreased number of convictions for Sunday drunkenness; in fact, the eases in 1895 were 11,230, compared with 13,084 in 1885. Note the difference in Sunday closing - Wales: number of convictions in 1885, 8120; number of convictions in 1895, 11,252, showing an increase of 3132. In Scotland there was an increase of 11,493 prosecutions for Sunday drunkenness in 1895. And yet in face of these figures there are those who would vote in favor of the Monmouthshire Sunday Closing Bill !

The .City of Hudson, on the Hudson River, about 120 miles north of New York, is one of the oldest cities in the commonwealth, and holds a very enviable reputation by reason of its healthfulness and the natural beauty of its surroundings. It is a quiet, self-contained community, but represents a great deal of wealth, and has not a few flourishing industries. It is a singular coincidence that this venerable city is the home of one of the first American industries, an industry which was the natural outgrowth of our settlement by ancestors from Holland and Great 1 Britain. The famous “Evans’ Ale Brewery was established in Hudson one year after theincorporation of that city, which occurred in 1782. Hudson was founded by people from Nantucket, then a very important whaling station. These English settlers located their thrifty establishments in the midst of the wide stretch of fertile lands in the Hudson valley, which were then owned by the Dutch Patroon. They brought with them from the Old Country a natural fondness for good old ale, and here, as in the still more venerable city of Albany, a brewery was one of the first of the industries that came to be established. Benjamin Faulkins founded it, and then it fell into the hands of the Evans family, who have maintained the high reputation and popularity established for its product by the founder, and have made “Evans’s Ale” a standard production throughout the world. Enormous quantities are sent by car and train loads regularly to patrons everywhere in the United States and far beyond our borders. The success of this industry is due in no small measure to the jealous care with which the Evans family have maintained the reputation of their product. Every traveller on the Hudon River Railroad who passes the City of Hudson notices the enormous brewery establishment at the base of the city, back from the river, which bears in great letters the sign of the famous and venerable “Evans’ Ale ” establishment.—“ Bonfort’s.”

Price of Liquor as a Measure of Prosperity.— “ The first time I ever saw Theodore Rooseveldt was back in the early eighties,” said a man who used to live in the West. “ I met him on a sleeping car coming East from Wyoming, where he had been visiting his ranch on the edge of the Bad Lands. At that time he was "unknown to the public except as the author of a few magazine articles on Western life, but luckily I had read them, and they formed a bridge for conversation,, I found him a burly young man with a heavy brown beard, which he had allowed to grow during his trip, and with manners that weregnervous and abrupt, but nevertheless very engaging. He was just recovering from an attack of snow-blindness, and wore large blue glasses, so he was pretty well disguised. There were eight or ten passengers on the car, representing the usual wide variety of type to be found on the frontier, and I remember that Rooseveldt easily took the lead in conversation. His versality and the extent of his information were surprising, and there was a vein of quaint humour that ran through his talk and lent a certain sparkle to almost everything he said. Somebody remarked, for instance, that he had recently visited a new mining comp in the Black Hills and had to pay fifty cents for a drink of execrable whisky. ‘ You can always determine a camp’s age and stage of development by the price charged for drinks,’ said Rooseveldt, chuck-, ling ‘ Four-bit whisky means recent occupation, unsettled conditions and the presence of one-half barrel, which some fellow has brought over the trail on a burro. Two-bit whisky indicates that the regulation boom is on, that tenderfeet are plenty and that regular communication with the outside world has been established. The next drop to three for h half is not a sign of a slump, but merely shows that the first excitement has passed and the town is getting down to what they call a “business basis.” Fifteen cent drinks mean that the business basis is reached, courts have been established, a schoolhouse is being built, claim jumping has become bad form, plug hats are tolerated and faro banks have moved upstairs. Any further decline, however,’ added Mr Rooseveldt, ‘is a danger signal. Two-for-a-quarter whisky is a sure sign of deterioration, and five cent beer means that a stampede has set in for the next diggings. That’s the way to read the alcoholic thermometer of the woolly West.’ ”— “ New Orleans Times-Democrat.”