TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1034, 30 December 1909, Page 20

TRADE TOPICS.

In connection with the Waihi slygrog selling cases, Mr. Mays mentioned that for the first hour of the Court’s sitting the Magistrate was inflicting fines at the rate of £lO per minute.

Honesty crops up occasionally in unexpected places (says the Carterton News). Some time ago a young man was arrested for being drunk in Belvedere Street, Carterton, and next day was brought before a local J. P., who pointed out the danger the man was to himself and others when in such a condition, and fined him five shillings or 24 hours in the lockup. The man could only raise four shillings, and asked that the fine be reduced to that amount. The J.P. was obdurate however, and refused to reduce the fine, but advanced the other shilling himself, the offender saying he was clearing out of the town. Recently he came into Carferton and visited the police station, handing to the officer in charge a shilling to be returned to the J.P., with his hearty thanks.

The Thames police station was the scene of unusual excitement on Friday afternoon (writes a Thames correspondent) when the confiscated liquor as the result of the Waihi raid, was sold by Mr. Bert Dunlop. Cases of ale containing 4 doz. quart bottles were sold at £1 and £1 2s 6d, while ten gallon kegs of beer sold for 10s.

The King Country Licenses Act provides that the present licenses in the King Country shall terminate on June 30, 1910, and that no future licenses shall be issued.

The Levin Hotel has changed hands, Mr. F. Rhodes having sold out to Mr. J. Berriman, late of the Provincial Hotel, Napier.

A new drink (says the Post) was added to the never-ending list by a witness in the Wellington Police Court the other day. He said he had been having “professional” drinks. Counsel ascertained from the witness, who had been connected with “the trade,” that “professional” drinks were of such a nature that quite a number could be partaken of without having any effect. The drink was made up of “just a thimbleful of liquor” and a large quantity of water. These drinks were generally partaken of by publicans when drinking with friends. The witness in question stated that he had been drinking “professional” drinks from early afternoon till 10 o’clock at night, and they had not had any effect on him. He was, he said, quite sober.

It is stated that some of the defendants in the recent sly grog selling cases at Waihi, were making profits at the rate of £25 per week, so that the fine they were called upon to pay is equivalent to the annual license fee. The only difference is that where before the license fees went to the local bodies the fines go to swell the Government’s surplus.

Details of the counter lunch as carried out in America are interesting says an English journal. “In Lower Broadway, New York, there was recently opened a veritable triumph in the way of quick lunches. There &re no waiters and no waiting. •Customers enter by the score in raipd succession, and they pass ’by a long counter on which the various articles of the quqik lunch are arranged in plates. At the beginning of the counter the quick luncher is handed a tray, and on this he places just such articles from the counter which he may desire. There is no jostling, because, parallel with the counter there is a brass rail sh that only one person can pass at a time. At the end of this railing stands an employee, who sees at a glance what each customer has upon the tray,.

TRADE xx—odOrs hofp. YNT and gives to hiip. or her a small check, indicating the figure to be paid to the cashier on leaving the establishment. There is one feature which particularly attracts, namely, that everything is scrupulously clean, even the sandwiches and the biscuits being done up in single portions in antiseptic wrappers.” The best thing about the whole business seems to be the “antiseptic wrapper.”

A singular incident occurred last week at Wollongong (New South Wales). About four years ago a box of jewellery, valued at £2OO, was taken from a safe at the Wollongong Hotel, the safe having been temporarily left open. Two individuals were suspected and arrested,.. but nothing could be proved against them, and they were discharged. While a drain pipe belonging to the hotel was being cleaned out last week, the box was discovered, and the jewellery, which belonged to the wife of the licensee, was returned to her intact.

In spite of the closing of the bars in Waihi (writes a correspondent to the “Eltham Argus”) there seems to be any amount of liquor still being consumed in the town, as shown by the recent wholesale prosecutions and as has been stated by various people from time to time. Therefore it seems that no-license does not prohibit the consumption of liquor, amongst people who want it. The same thing is said about other no-license places. If the consumption of liquor and the spending (or wasting) of money on the purchase of it, is so detrimental to morality and business as the nolicense people make out how do they reconcile their statement about the great improvement noticeable under no-license when wholesale drinking is still going on, even if sub rosa and in defiance of the law-

Prohibition is fundamentally and profoundly wrong as a governmental policy, and in a country where the largest measure of freedom of action is accorded the individual it becomes intolerable; and for a state, through Its law making power, to attempt to control what the people shall eat, drink, and wear, except to see that they are protected from imposition, is tyranny, and not liberty. No state has yet attempted to forbid what a man should eat, pure food laws are necessary to see what he eats is not adulterated or misbranded, and that he obtains what he wants without substitution or deceit by the dishonest man or dealer. No state has yet attempted by law to prescribe the manner of dress for the people, but it would be competent for the state to provide law that the goods should be properly marked, so as to prevent imposition. No state has attempted to force the people not to use certain kinds of medicines or to use certain others, but it can and ought to have all medicines properly labelled so as to prevent fraud.—Governor Patterson in a message to the Legislature of Tennessee.

Thus the Madras correspondent of London “Caterer”: —“ Two hotels in this city have introduced a weekly ‘Guest Night.’ After dinner, while the visitors are having a smoke or walking about the ‘compound,’ the tables, etc., are removed, and the floor quickly chalked, and In ten minutes or so programmes are out and couples are waltzing round the room. The advent of electric fans In most hotels now. and particularly In commercial houses, is a great boon. The Connemara Hotel, by the way, has a special room or bungalow in the front of the hotel dine, and where the dance is held.”

A French chemist has recently proclaimed that cider is an antidote for typhoid fever. The acid in it is the agent, as it destroys the germs. Cider in Europe is generally used as a beverage. G-ermans prefer cider after it becomes sour, but Americans usually prefer it while it is sweet.

London “Caterer” tells the following tale. The Hotel Kaaterskill, a great American resort house high up in the Catskill Mountains and overlooking Palenville (immortalised as the “Village of Falling Waters” in Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”) is known in the district as the “Hen Coop.” Mr. George Hardin, father of the present proprietor and a rich Philadelphia attorney, was a guest at the Mountain House, and suffering from gastric trouble was bound to strict dietary rules. For one thing he was to have chicken cooked in a special way, but the hotel people would not Interest themselves to meet what they probably regarded as a fad. Finally a vigorous protest to the chef brought

this tactless answer:—“You’d better build a hotel of your own and then you’ll find, maybe, that you can’t always have things just as you want them!” The annoyed guest quietly replied, “Maybe I will.” Mr. Hardin acquired a suitable site, and the outcome of a large money expenditure was the splendid Hotel Kaaterskill, which became a damaging/ competitor of the old Mountain House.

A short time ago representatives of the workers of the four hotel unions of the Dominion met in conference for the purpose of establishing a federation of workers in the hotel and restaurant trade. A constitution was drafted, and a set of rules drawn up and subsequently submitted to the represented unions for ratification. The scheme of federation was approved by three of the unions, Wellington, Auckland, and Dunedin, and last week (says' “ The Dominiob ”) an association called the New Zealand Federated Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ Association was registered. The Wellington Union is the executive of the federation for the year. In view of the expiration of the awards in Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland, an extraordinary conference will probably be held shortly for the purpose of framing a set of demands to form the basis of a Dominion award. The ordinary conference of the federation will be held in June next, when it is hoped that the Christchurch Union will also join.