CHOPS & CHANGES

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 529, 7 February 1901, Page 19

CHOPS & CHANGES

All hotels were closed on Saturday last on the occasion of the Queen’s funeral.

Australian papers state that the absence of any drunken people was the great feature of the Commonwealth celebrations.

Messrs Cassrells and Bennett, who for many years were associated in the hotelkeeping line in Paeroa, have dissolved partnership. It is not generally know that the Postal authorities have, by instruction of Hon J. G. Ward, abolished the fine known as “ double deficient postage.” Mr Percy Herman, who is well-known in Wanganui having been some years host of the Rutland Hotel there, has taken over Warner’s Hotel, Christchurch. Mr M. H. Walsh, lately of the Albion Hotel, has returned from Sydney, and looks none the worse for the hand he took in the Commonwealth celebrations. Rumour has it that Mr Walsh may be in business again before long in our city. At the next sitting of the Licensing Bench, which takes place at Pukekohe on the 2nd March, James Mackintosh Fraser will apply to have the license of the Kentish Hotel at Waiuku transferred from himself to William Whitcombe;

It is intended (says the “Daily Mail ”) to give practical effect to the plan of temperance reform recently outlined by the Bishop of Chester, by the incorporation of publichouse trust companies for London and the provinces. The object of these companies will be to acquire every new license which the authorities think it desirable to create, and to apply to the publichouses so acquired, and to existing publichouses whenever possible, a system of administration which will accrue that they shall be managed as a trust in the interest of the community, and not for private profit. In the houses managed by the company, says Lord Grey, the provisional chairman, only the best drink that can be obtained in the open market will be sold. It will not be the interest of the manager to push the sale of intoxicants. The publichouses will be refreshment houses, and not merely drinking bars, The surplus profit, after allowing a sufficient sum for depreciation, reserve, and interest not exceeding 5 per cent on invested capital, will be administered by carefully selected trustees for the benefit of the community.