BEGGARS’ HOTELS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 939, 5 March 1908, Page 21

BEGGARS’ HOTELS.

(By Geo. R. Sims in “ The Referee”) The advocates of Temperance are waging war upon the publicans, and the publicans are protesting that there is no reed for what they call “ further harassing legislation.” The Licensing Laws are now not only a feature of the programme of the Social Reformer, but a plank in the platform of a political party. As one who has for some time past strenuously advocated reasonable legislation in the interests of the Child and the Home, but who has at the same time strongly imprecated any measure which would tend to drive the drink traffic out of licensed premises, where it is under supervision and control, into places where there is no supervision and no control. I desire to draw attention to a scandal in connection with the Lecensing Laws as .they at present exist, believing it to be a scandal against which

both the Temperance Party and the Trade Party will meet on a common ground of protest. It is common knowledge that the whole country now swarms with clubs which, calling themselves by a variety of names, are, with a few exceptions, nothing more or less than unlicensed dram-shops, in which liquor, often of a quality which no respectable publican would dream of offering to his customers, is consumed in enormous quantities during the hours that license-holders are compelled by law to keep their premises closed. In these clubs all-night drinking is by no means unknown, and on Sundays, the premises are packed from morning till night with men, mostly of the workingclass, who in the conviviality of comradeship spend at the club bar a good deal of money that could be far more advantageously laid out on the home, the wife, and the little ones.

These drinking dens masquerading as clubs are increasing and multiplying in every direction, and there is little prospect of the evil being drastically dealt with because the two chief political parties hesitate for party reasons to join in a campaign against them. But many social reformers who are party men make up for their discretion in the bogus club matter by the valour of their attack upon the bona-fide license-holder.

My argument is, and always has been, that the cause of Temperance can never be advanced by any measure which tends

to drive the consumer out of premises where the hours of supply are limited by law into premises where the hours of supply are unlimited.

In the Temperance campaign in which I have taken a humble part the great object is the protection of the young child from the environment and atmosphere of the crowded drinking bar. But if we succeed in keeping little children out of drinking bars—and there is reason to believe that we shall, for many members of the Trade are in sympathy with the movement—what good will have been accomplished if the children are allowed to be taken into the suffocating atmosphere of a drinking-club on the frequent occasions which are called “ ladies’ nights”? On these occasions small rooms, reeking with alcohol and tobaccosmoke, are crowded to suffocation with men, women and children.

Intemperance is the deadly enemy of the National well-being and National efficiency, and we must fight it in every possible way. But we must fight it fairly and squarely. Sauce for the publican must be sauce for the clublican. It is useless to close a public-house and allow three drinking clubs to spring up in the immediate neighbourhood. Having said so much in order to define the position I am taking up, I desire to draw attention to another phase si the question—namely, the haphazard way in which the licensing laws as they at present exist are administered , The licens-

mg body is adamant in one area and putty in another. • In one town there is an organised official campaign, which has as its object the wiping of the public-house out of existence, and in a neighbouring town, there is a recklessness in licensing which is nothing short of a scandal. As an instance of the latter contention, I will take the town of Bedford, the town in whose gaol the inspired tinker, John Bunyan, wrote his immortal “ Pilgrim’s Progress. ” There is a narrow street or lane in Bedford which contains four registered Com-mon-lodging-houses, and close by are another registered common lodging-house and an unregistered lodging-house. These are all the Common lodging-houses in Bedford, and every one of them is licensed to sell beer. I will give the particulars in each case.

No. i.—Registered Common lodginghouse. The beds. Price of bed fourpence. Licensed for beer. Bar open to the public during regulation hours. No refreshments other than drink sup-

plied on demand. The tramps and vagrants and nightly lodgers have access to the bar from the common kitchen, and obtain drink during prohibited hours and all day on Sunday. This house joins two other licensed houses. No. 2. —Registered Common lodginghouse. Same conditions as No. i. Twenty-two beds- Entrances for public two. One drinking bar. No refreshments other than drink supplied on demand. Joins two licensed houses. No. 3.—Registered Common-lodging house. Seven beds. Entrances for public two. One drinking bar. No refreshments other than drink supplied on demand. Is twenty-seven yards from one licensed house and thirty-four yards from another. No. 4. —Registered Common lodginghouse. Twelve beds. Two drinking bars. No refreshmnets other than drink supplied on demand. Is twentyseven yards from one licensed house and sixty-seven yards from another. No. 5. —Registered Common lodginghouse. Twenty-five beds. One drinking bar. No refreshments other than drink supolied on demand. Is fifty

yards away from one licensed house and fifty yards from another. No. 6. —Unregistered lodging-house. Lodgers pay weekly. Licensed to sell beer.

I have taken these particulars from the Report made by the Head Constable of Bedford to the Annual Licensing Meeting on February 9, 1904. In order to ascertain if the conditions were still the same I have quite recently visited every house here mentioned, and I found the condition of every registered Common lodging-house in Bedford exactly the same as in the Report of 1904. There is access into the drinking bar from the common kitchen in each house.

In the kitchens I found the character of the lodgers to be of the usual Doss-house or “ padding ken ” order. In some of these kitchens there were women as well as men, the house being a “ mixed ” one —that is, accommodating both sexes. Here, then, we have a town in which every registered Common lodging-house has a beer license, and all the houses are, as 1 have shown, in one small area, and close to other licensed houses.

Many of the lodgers are beggars, and make a practice of soliciting alms in the streets. They spend the money they get in this way “ on the premises.” Each of these houses is practically a tramps’ hotel,' but' fodd'is not' supplied as at an hotel —only drink. In spite of this fact, all the Doss-houses are licensed as beer houses, and anyone taking a bed ticket, which costs fourpence, is able to drink on the premises during prohibited hours.

This is a plain statement of facts. I leave them to the consideration of the authorities and all who are interested in

the present campaign for a Reform of the Licensing Laws.