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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 956, 2 July 1908, Page 20

We hear that Mr. T. B. O’Connor will shortly take over the City Club Hotel, Shortland-street, he having purchased Mr M. H. Walsh’s interest in that house. We are pleased indeed to welcome Tim back again to the ranks of the trade, it being a safe assertion that there is no more popular landlord in local circles than Mr T. B. O’Connor.

The New South Wales police have found it necessary to again issue a circular warning business people that forged bank notes are again in circulation.

In reference to the agitation that has been going on in England lately over the importing of foreign hops, a London paper remarks that American hops are raised for the most part by cheap Chinese or Japanese labour on the Pacific slope of the United States, and that these hops are being dumped into England at a price which seems to show a determination to starve the English grower and drive him out of the field.

Speaking at a mass meeting at Birmingham recently, Mr Asquith said he staked his own political fortunes, and as far as he could the fortunes of the Government and party, on the Licens-

ing Bill. Mr Asquith added that he had been told he was foolhardy, but his own belief was that he had never done a wiser thing.

A man who was convicted of bigamy at Hastings the othei* day, pleaded that he was drunk at the time. It is surprising the number of offences that are alleged to have been caused by drink, but we imagine that the one of bigamy is quite 'the very latest.

In a recent interview with a press representative in Wellington, the Prime Minister stated that it was not intended to make any new appointments to the Legislative Council .

The greatest agitation continues in England against the Licensing Bill. At a monster meeting held a few days ago, Mr Balfour declared that the bill was one of spoliation, and hopelessly doomed to failure, since it was impossible to gain a great moral end by grossly immoral means.

Last Saturday morning Mr Justice Edwards gave his decision in favour of plaintiff, in the case of Mr. E- B. Dufaur v. Messrs Smiths and Kenealy, in connection with the Te Puke Hotel. The hearing of the case was a lengthy one, occupying five days, and necessitating some 150 volumes being referred to on law points. Stay of execution with respect to damages and costs has been allowed, and fourteen days allowed to find security in the event of an appeal.

Mr. Harry Parker, late of Wellington, and who was well known in various Societies in the Empire City, has taken over the Empire Hotel at Pending, and will be pleased to see all old friends, who will be assured of a hearty welcome.

Those who are accustomed to travel through New Zealand cannot but be struck with the marked improvement which has taken place during the last few years in the way of hotel accommodation. This improvement is general right throughout the Dominion, but nowhere is it more noticeable than in the Empire City. Old and out-of-date buildings are constantly being replaced by modern structures, where every convenience is provided to ensure the comfort of the travelling public. One of the finest of the newer hotels in Wellington is Barrett’s. The new landlord, Mr. Gow, has made wonderful improvements since he took over the business. The place has been thoroughly renovated throughout and visitors will find the appointments are excellent, every comfort and attention being paid them by the proprietor and his staff.

The renowned Mr Dooley says, “the best the prohibitionists have done so far is to make dhrink wrong to take, hard to get, and terrible bad when you get it.”

Governor Hoke Smith, of Georgia (U.S.A-), a “dry” State (much boasted of by the Prohibiters) is considering the question of issuing a call for a special session of the Georgia Legislative to consider “the failure of Prohibition.”

Says a writer in the “Daily Mail”: — Mr Birrell, at Eastbourne, said. —

“They saw the brewers purchasing hundreds and hundreds of houses, and tying them, thus condemning the population to drink their beer —and not their best beer.” The allegation that the beer supplied to tied houses is inferior beer is untrue. The practice of brewers is to supply their best to their own houses, and for this very simple reason a tied house bears conspicuously upon it the name of the firm providing the beer. If inferior beer is supplied at one house, all the other houses owned by the same firm suffer in repute and in profit- No brewer would be such a fool as not to give of his best to his own houses.

At Balclutha last Friday the premises occupied by Geo. Fisher, board-ing-house keeper, were raided by the police, and in a well under the floor of the chaff-house 56 bottles of whisky were found. * * a

So small was the quantity of arsenic in hops, said a witness before the British Parliamentary Committee on the hop industry, that a man would have to drink 36 gallons of beer a day for many years before it would harm him.

Sir Thomas Dewar stated that there is at present enough whisky in the world to meet the consumption for four and a-half years, though not a gill more is made in the meantime.

The teetotallers of Boston are quite convinced that claret is a non-intoxi-cating drink. They drink it without so much as a twinge of the corner of their conscience at the mayor’s annual dinner, and when during Lent their ranks are temporarily swelled by those who try to mortify the flesh, the latter draw the line of mortification at claret. That, at any rate, they think, does not minister to the pleasures of the palate or induce drunkenness.

In connection with the charge against the chief steward of the Moeraki of selling wine to a passenger after the steamer had berthed at Sydney the Court found that though the Moeraki was registered in New Zealand defendant was liable to the local liquor law, and the Court had jurisdiction- The Court fined him £3O, or, in default, two months’ imprisonment.

John Currin, a resident of Oamaru, for giving an order to a publican to send liquor into a no-license district without supplying the latter with his name and address, was fined £lO, and costs 12s.

Mr. F- A. Andrews, formerly a resident of Picton, and now employed as head malster by an English firm, induced the firm to introduce New Zealand hops into his place of employment. Previous to this, English hop factories held the opinion that New Zealand hops, generally speaking, lacked condition, but a consignment was received there at 95s a hundredweight, and they were subsequently declared equal to the best Californian.

Packet Licenses caused considerable discussion at the meeting of the Kaipara Licensing Committee last week. The local No-License League lodged a petition against the granting of these licenses to the passenger steamers trading on the Kaipara River.

Considerable evidence for and against -was heard by the Court, the hearing of which resulted in Mr Ri W. Dyer, S.M., granting the licenses, stating that his firm conviction was that there would be less drunkenness and better control and comfort for the travelling public, if the licenses were renewed.

An application for a wholesale license at Dargaville was refused by the Licensing Bench last week-

Three firemen belonging to the steamer Waikare were before the Court in Wellington last week on charges of stealing beer from the ship’s cargo. They were found helping themselves by the can full from a barrel of beer, and maltreated a quartermaster who endeavoured to stop them. Each defendant was fined £5, or in default 21 days’ imprisonment.

The no-license district of Gore furnished an instance last week of liquor being plentiful within its boundaries. A quarrel arose among three men and a woman, during which some gun shooting, fortunately without fatalities, was indulged in. Subsequent searchings brought forth eight bottles of whisky and a quantity of other liquor. Six bottles of whisky were also found buried in the garden. The Prohibs are having bad luck with their example districts of late. Only a week or two ago, Gore was held up as a district to be admired and copied owing to its state of no-license.