WHAT IS A “GLASS.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 916, 26 September 1907, Page 22

WHAT IS A “GLASS.”

“What is a glass?” was the question brought up in the Cape Supreme Court the other day (writes the Capetown correspondent of the “L.V.G. and Hotel Courier”). This is pretty high promotion for a vexed question that has figured so largely in humorous and serious literature alike. The best joke I remember on the subject of the capacity or contents of a glass appeared in an English comic paper many years ago, in which a customer complains of the large proportion of froth. “I thought you would like it with a good head!” says the barmaid, to which the customer replies, “Yes! But not such a jolly long neck!” In more serious literature, one of the best •tones is to be found in Carleton’s tales, of an Irish peasant who evaded his doctor’s dictum on the number of glasses of po-heen he should consume by. visiting a neighbouring glass factory, and having a vessel constructed which, whilst complying with doctor’s orders, should also meet his own views on the whisky question. It is this last story one is reminded of in the recent case, where the Crown prosecuted a publican within a prescribed area for evaaing the law regarding the supply of liquor to natives. The law in question required that no liquor should be supplied to a native without the permit of the resident magistrate. The permit was obtained and duly presented to the hotelkeeper’s barman, who supplied the native with a glass of Cape brandy, and the barman’s employer was promptly summoned and fined. “What is a glass?” said the Chief Justice, at an early stage of the appeal case. Mr. Upington (son of the late judge and famous Cape statesman of that ilk) hereupon replied that the Crown witnesses had defined a glass as being a mouthful and a half. “Ah, but that depends on the size of the mouth!” said the Chief Justice, entering into the humour of the thing, and exciting that roar of laughter which a judge’s joke always gets, even when it is not a good one (which cannot be said in this present instance); a nigger’s mouth being anything but a small and dainty one. This particular n gger had been supplied with a small glass, with which he was dissatisfied, and was then furnished with a halfpint tumbler; Even that, said the rising young lawyer, was onfy half the quantity field by the largest glasses used, a fact which should be taken into consideration in a decision involving the payment of a very heavy penalty. Qn the other side, the prosecution argued that a wineglass was the proper measure when brandy or whisky was under consideration. “Why

not a liqueur glass?” said Mr. Upington, by way of a reductio ad absurdum argument, and the Chief Justice capped the argument with the decision that “a liqueur glass would be less than a mouthful and a-half. Space will not permit me to give the Chief Justice’s decision at full length, and it might be deemed more lengthy than entertaining. The chief point about it was his opinion that the word “glass” was too vague a term, therein d.tiering from the word “bottle,” which within narrow limits could be classed as a fairly definite measure. He therefore quashed the conviction.