TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 997, 15 April 1909, Page 20

TRADE TOPICS.

Mr. Fred Henwood, who has been hotelkeeping for many years, has sold out of his hotel at Kihikihi to Mr. Dan Cooper.

We hear that Mr. W. T. Watts has sold his interest in the Naval and Family Hotel, Pitt-street, to Messrs. Raynes Brothers.

At Nelson last Saturday night a fire broke out in a large unoccupied building known as the Windsor Castle Hotel. No great damage was done.

Mr. Jas. Wibberley, who has kept hotels in Wanganui and Waitotara, New Zealand, and at Kalgoorlie and Boulder City, Western Australia, has (according to “Fairplay”) taken the Royal Oak Hotel at Rookwood, New South Wales.

Excellent is the report of most hotel keepers in the City over Easter business. Many of the larger hotels had their room accommo'dation strained to the useful shakedown point. The fact that hotels are always first filled at holiday time goes far to prove their popularity with the travelling public. Rotorua and other holiday resorts also report big business. • * * ♦

Mr. Dyer, S.M., of Auckland, and chairman of the City Licensing Committee, has been transferred to Tauranga, vice Colonel Roberts, who has retired on the age limit. Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., succeeds Mr. Dyer as second stipendiary magistrate at Auckland. Mr. Cutten, in turn, is succeeded in the Waikato by Mr. F. Longhorn, who was appointed a stipendiary magistrate last week.

The choicest of tobacco grown in Siam cannot be purchased, as it is reserved for the special use of the King. It is sent down to Bangkok, where it is smoked in the Palace, and distributed to the chief officers of State.

At Christchurch last week, Catherine Colburn, proprietress of a restaurant, was fined £l5 and costs for sly grog selling. She supplied a constable with a glass of beer in her restaurant, charging one shilling. Subsequently the police found a jar half full of beer on the premises.

In the local court last Thursday a man named Thomas Beamish was fined 30s. and costs, or two months’ imprisonment, for supplying a prohibited person with liquor.

From a Home paper we learn that the George and Dragon Inn, at Apperley Bridge, is one of the oldest licensed houses in that part of the county, being something like 300 years old. A fragment of its history can be seen to-day in the snug in the form of a

translation of a Latin inscription, which at one time was to be seen on a mantelpiece in the house. It reads as follows: “Not for the purpose of making a shew, but for necessary uses Samuel Hemingway and Mary, his wife, enlarged this house, A.D. 1704. These things are cherishing; Victuals' drink, warmth, shelter; which, if thou possess, remember gratefully to give thanks to God.” At the time of the enlargement the place was described as Mr. Flick’s house, and the above is an exact copy of the inscription in regard to punctuation, etc.

A strange case of robbery has been reported to the police in Wellington by a man about 35 years of age On a recent evening he took a room in a hotel in the city, and was then in possession of £6O in gold, contained in a purse, and some loose silver. During the evening he left the hotel, and was with several bad Characters and thieves. Returning to the hotel, he went to bed, and on rising felt in his pockets, and found that the loose silver was still there. He paid his hotel bill and then left, but soon afterwards discovered that his purse was missing. It is not clear whether he lost it at the hotel or earlier in the evening. * * ♦ ♦ m R -? torua no lon & er forms part of the Waikato Licensing District, as it has been attached to Tauranga. * * * * It may not be generally known that four men out of every six use tobacco * * * * At the Levin Police Court last week, W. G. Moorehouse, proprietor of the Manakau Hotel, was fined £lO and costs for allowing liquor to be illegally sold in his hotel on Sunday, February 28. It was pleaded in extenuation of the licensee that the liquor was sold by one Duff, without his authority. The Bench said Duff was undoubtedly representative of the licensee, having been put in charge to receive all people who came to the hotel. His acts were those of a licensee, and he had admitted selling liquor. Taking into consideration the statement of counsel, the Bench was not disposed to endorse the license. * * ♦ * The vineyards of the world yield 3,554,416,000 gallons of wine a year. * * * ♦ Hospital Physician (with a view to diagnosis): “ What do you drink? ” New Patient (cheering up at the proposal) : “ Oh, sir—thank you, sir—whatever you—l leave that to you sir! ” • * * * A hospitable innkeeper was wont to pose as Father Christmas when the festive season came round. At such times an enormous pork-pie stood on the counter, and customers were invited to help themselves. One Christmas Eve a stranger walked in, sat down, and coolly cut off a bulky slice. Half an hour later the man was still eating ravenously, and the landlord could stand it no longer. “ You’ll excuse me,” he remarked, “ but I don’t seem to remember your face. You’re not a customer.” “ Pardon me,” was the polite response, as the stranger helped himself to another slice, “ I was here last Christmas Eve, and ’’—with his mouth full of pie—“ if all goes well I shall be here next!” » « * * Referring to the fining of a restaurant keeper for having sold Australian wine as Burgundy, Mr. Taverner (Victorian Agent-General) explains that the Imperial Government holds that the use of such terms as Burgundy and Bordeaux, with the word “ Australian ” added, is legitimate, and does not conflict with the Madrid Convention of 1891. The French Ambassador has been informed accordingly. * * * ♦ This strange tale is given on the high authority of the “ British Medical Journal”: —A medical practitioner who was attending a licensed victualler, and had brought a physician to see him, said in an undertone to the wife

as they were going upstairs that the fee would be “three guineas.” After the consultation, as the money did not seem forthcoming, he again mentioned the fee, which was promptly paid. The doctors then prepared to depart, but the lady of the house interposed, and asked what was to be done with the three glasses of stout which they now saw with surprise on the table, and which she averred her doctor had ordered as they were going upstairs. She thought “ three Guinness ” was the fee —perhaps a not unnatural mistake for a publican’s wife. It was a “stout” if not exactly a fat, fee.