Trade Topics

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 801, 13 July 1905, Page 23

Trade Topics

A witness in a licensing case at Masterton gave her name as Katrina Juanita Blanca Beresford Di Venci Bennett. After all “what’s in a name.”

News has just come to hand of the death of Mr Edward Perkins, the onetime genial proprietor of the Occidental Hotel, Vulcan Lane. His death was the result of an operation undergone in Chicago in May last. He was well known in Auckland, where he has many friends, and he always took the keenest interest in all sporting matters. Vulcan Lane-ites will remember him well.

From the mass of figures contained in a Departmental return may be gathered ■ some idea of what the average New Zea- ■ land er eats, drinks, and smokes, at any rate so far as certain articles in common use are concerned. From this it appears that last year the population consumed 647,155 gallons of spirits, at a -cost of £1 19s 4d for every adult in the .community. The tobacco that went up into smoke weighed 1,955,5631 b, dr ■7.431 b per head, and at a cost per head of £1 5s 10d. This does not include cigars, cigarettes and snuff, which

cost the community 8s 5d per head. Turning to wine, it is found that 120,120 gallons were consumed, at a cost of is 2£d of the male and female population over fifteen years of age, which also spent 8s 5d a head on ale and beer, while the sum of is l£d per head of the total population, including Maoris, was spent on tea. Only Ifd per head of the whole population was spent on coffee, cocoa, and chicory, but the consumption of sugar went up to the large total of 94,522,0801 b, or 104.9 per head, and averaging 4s 4|d for every man, woman and child in the colony. Finally the figures show that the male and female population of the colony over fifteen years spent 3s 3d a head on New Zealand brewed beer.

Napier bids fair to be overwhelmed directly by a descent of prohibition fanatics. The Revs. F. W. Isitt, L. M. Isitt, Mrs Lee, Messrs J. G. Wooley, Fisher, Taylor, Bedford, and Hawkins are all to fall upon the doomed town within the next few months. Two earthquakes have already occurred there in anticipation, and a volcanic eruption may be expected to come to Napier’s rescue.

“The chief enemy of temperance,” said Mr Marshall Hall, K.C., at Birmingham Brewster Sessions, “is that there is not a temperance drink fit for them to consume. If the temperance party would put a nice lager beer on the market they would do more for temperance in a week than legislation has done in a century.” * * • «

The Kamo Hotel (says the “ Northern Advocate”) has now passed into the capable hands of Mr A. C. Warin, formerly of Coromandel, who comes amongst us with a reputation of being a first-class caterer, and who, we understand, will leave nothing undone to raise the standard of accommodation at the hostelry now under his charge. * « * «

A telegram from Dunedin states that it is anticipated that one of the Magistrates will be forthwith appointed by the Government as Chairman of the Licensing Committee for Chalmers, and that this Magistrate will alone go through the applications lodged in June, 1903, and grant them. It is expected that the hotels will be re-opened by the end of next week. The probabilities of the next election are already being actively discussed, and each set of partisans seems confident—the one that the No-license party will secure a clear three-fifths again, and the other that the coming election will reverse the figures of 1902.

A remarkable case of alcohol smuggling has just been revealed in Paris. A furniture dealer’s cart, laden with goods, has for years passed through the octroi gate without suspicion. Recently, however, the vehicle broke down, and there gushed from a broken table leg a stream of liquor. All the table legs on the cart were found to be full. The dealer, who was arrested, confessed that, in two years, he had in this way smuggled 10,000 gallons. ~ « * It is worthy of note that the number of famous men and women who have been born and bred in licensed houses is “so great that the world could hardly contain the books that might be written about them” (says the “ Australian Brewers’ Journal.”) This may. perhaps, be considered an exaggeration; nevertheless, the name of these worthies is legion, and they were devotees of all those pursuits for the successful conduct of which the highest intelligence is laid under tribute. Let us take a few names at random from the long list presented. Geoffrey Chaucer, the great poet, was the son of a vintner. Hobbes, the philosopher, loved to resort to an old inn, and “ made boast that he had been drunk a hundred times in his life,” which, says one critic, “ considering his great age, did not amount to twice a year.” Cobbett, described as f< a great literary force, but political weathercock,” was born at Farnham, England, where his father was a small farmer, who kept a “ not-house.” Browning, whose poetry impresses the Victorian period, traces his descent from a certain Dorset innkeeper who flourished in the early part

of the 18th century. The celebrated poet’s great-grandfather, Thos. Browning, was a lessee of the Woodgate’s Inn, Penbridge, Dorsetshire, and a churchwarden. We have all read of Colonel Pride, of “ Pride’s Purge,” an officer in the Commonwealth Army. He was a brewer, and had three establishments going at the same time. A brother Puritan admonished him once because of his trade. Said Pride:—“Let them show me one text of Scripture where brewers . . . are forbidden to be judges.” The great actress Sarah Siddons, was born while her parents were living in the “ Shoulder of Mutton”—a small publichouse in Wales. Mr. T. P. O’Connor writes of her:—“ She was a model of all the. virtues of the wife and the home.” The famous painter, Sir Thomas Lawrence, was born in another small publichouse, kept by his father, and called the “ White Lion,” situated in a narrow, dark, and dirty lane in Bristol. He was one of sixteen children. Napoleon’s dashing cavalry officer, Murat, was an innkeeper’s son. The Calvinist orator and preacher, George Whitefield, a rival of Wesley, was born in the “ Bell Inn,” in Gloucester. Curiously enough, under the same roof was born Henry Philpotts, who, as Bishop of Exeter, became famous during the Tractarian movement. In. our days and in our own lands we could produce a long list of men of mark—divines, politicians, literary, and other professional men—all of whom have helped to build up the noble fabric of our new Commonwealth. We may, therefore, freely accept the averment that the licensed house “ has been the seed-plot from which has sprung most of our great philanthropic, charitable, and industrial institutions, and its sons have enriched the walks of life with some of the noblest examples of all that is of virtue, valour, and intellect.” But, despite all that may be written, the cowardly contumacy will still be directed against good men and fair women who follow the trade of the licensed victualler, whose sons turn out as well, if not better, than the sons of parsons. All that we can do is to “ educate, educate, educate,” until something like what the “ Licensing World” calls the “equilibrium of equity” is established in the minds of those who have to deal with functions and uses of an institution as old as our laws themselves, and which has proved its utility during long ages in the service of all ranks and conditions of men.

Our Taranaki correspondent writes (July 8): —The much-boomed Fathei' Hays has “ starred” through Taranaki, but he did not create the impression that the prohibitionists thought he would He had a crowded house at New Plymouth, and received an attentive hearing but the general opinion was that as a lecturer the reverend gentleman had been overrated. If you deleted the stories which he introduced into the lecture you had precious little left. Another point that people object to was the evident “ show” business. Two shillings and one shiL ling were not bad charged for a “ one man show.” All the prominent prohibitionists were much in ..evidence running the show, and they pressed the Salvation Army Biorama Band into service in order to give the whole “ show” plenty of spectacular effect. One of the clergymen on the platform was the Rev. S. S. Osborne, the Presbyterian minister at New Plymouth, who had backbone enough to declare in a short speech that he was not a prohibitionist, and did not believe in it; but he considered there was room for reform in the conduct of the trade. ... I hear that there is likely to be some trouble over the new Inglewood hotel building. It is reported that recent heavy rain penetrated the new structure, and that Mrs. Kennedy had to shift some of her furniture.