TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1047, 31 March 1910, Page 20

TRADE TOPICS.

A serious fire occurred at Dunedin, on Wednesday night, in George’s Victoria Hotel, Naseby, which was owned by Mrs. Black, and occupied by Mr. W. B. Allan. When discovered, the fire had a very firm hold, and before it was suppressed the interior had suffered very severely. Only the kitchen and billiard-room and one bedroom escaped. The building was insured for £650, and the furniture and stock for £435, in the Victoria office.

At the Sons of Temperance Conference at Melbourne a delegate advocated a tax on wool to make up the loss of revenue through the prohibition of alcohol. He pointed out that wool averaged £l3 per bale, of which £3 went in labour, so there was a huge profit. A tax of £1 a bale would yield two millions.

The annual conference of the Australasian Commercial Travellers’ Association has opened. Messrs. F. H. King and C. S. Owen represent New Zealand. It was resolved that hotelkeepers receiving the association’s certificate should be asked not to take in as permanent boarders persons suffering from tuberculosis.

One of the most important questions to be decided at the next elections in the State of Illinois is that connected with the liquor traffic. At Chicago the registrations for the April elections are the heaviest ever known, which indicate a possible victory for the anti-liquor element.

Thus Sir James Paget:—“ The best, and, in >proportilon to number, the largest quantity of brain work has been, and still is being done by the people of those nations in which the use of alcoholic liquors has been, and is, habitual. . . . On the whole,

and on the question of national health and strength, I cannot doubt, with

such evidence as we have, that the habitual moderate use of alcoholic drinks is generally beneficial, and that in the questions raised between temperance and abstinence, the verdict should be in favour of temperance.”

When a man is found drunk in the streets of Prisrend, Albania, he is tied to a kind of triangle upon a donkey’s back and paraded through the streets with a boy beating a drum in front of the procession. The innkeeper, too, who gave the man the drink is fined, and the money goes to the pasha. The drunkard is sentenced, too, to several days at hard labor.

Three prosecutions bearing on the conveyance of liquor into a no-license district were brought by the police in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court, before Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., against George Green, a fisherman, of Island Bay, and Joseph Henry Chaney, employed at Macarthy’s brewery. The former was charged that he did not notify Chaney, to whom the order was given, that the liquor was intended to be taken into a no-license district, and did not give him his name and address. The charges against Chaney were that he delivered a package containing two gallons of beer to be taken into a no-license district, not having gone through the necessary formalities. Evidence was given by George Green, who stated that he had purchased the beer from Chaney, whom he had known for years. He did not give the latter his name and address. Chaney admitted that some years ago he knew that the Greens lived at Island Bay, but he denied that he knew that Green was taking the beer into a no-license area. Mr. Riddell dismissed the information against Green, of whose address he held Chaney must have been cognisant. Chaney was convicted on each information, and the offences being committed together, one fine of £3, with costs 9s, was imposed. • * * » A total of 14,000 gallons of wine is expected from the Te Mata (H. 8. vineyards this year. • • « • Mrs. Berryman, of the Levin Hotel, has imported a King Charles Spaniel dog and a bitch from the noted kennels of Mrs Privett, Willesden Green, London, N.W. Both of these King Charles are in quarantine at Somes Island, and will be released in May. • • • * In the Invercargill Police Court on Thursday, a man named Poff, was convicted and discharged on a charge of obtaining liquor at Christchurch to send into Invercargill, a no-licenjse district, without informing the vendor of the fact. « » « * It will be remembered that certain hotelkeepers at Geraldine, who lost their licenses as a result of the last local option poll, appeared at the Supreme Court, and subsequently to the Appeal Court, for a mandamus to compel the Ashburton Licensing Committee to hear and consider their applications for licenses, which the committee had declined to do, on the ground of having no Jurisdiction. The Higher Court dismissed the appeal, but permission was granted to make a further appeal to the Privy Council. It appears, however (the “Ashburton Guardian” is informed), that the time for lodging security lapsed in January last, and no security having been lodged, the leave granted by the Appeal Court to appeal to the Privy Council lapses. If further steps are contemplated by the licensees or their representatives special leave will require to be made and granted.

Germany’s drink bill for the current year is estimated at £145,000.000, which is twofold the combined cost of the army and navy, and fivefold that of education.

The oldest licensee in the United Kingdom, until a month or two ago was John Dutton, of Kingswinford, who is 95 years of age. He recently handed over the license to his daugh-ter-in-law.

At the Eketahuna Magistrate’s Court, before Mr. C. C. Graham, S.M, Maggie Johnson was charged with having given an order on account of another person for liquor intended to be sent into the no-license district of Masterton, and with having failed to give a statement in writing of the name and the address of such other person. From the evidence of the police it appeared that defendant sent a letter and order to W. Owen, licensee of the Commercial Hotel, Pahiatua, asking that five gallons of whisky be sent to her in the name of J. Winteringham and T. Murray. The liquor was forwarded to Eketahuna, and subsequently Mrs. Johnson admitted that she had no authority to order the liquor. The Magistrate gave Mrs, Johnson the benefit of the doubt as far as Winteringham was concerned, though he suggested the police might make further inquiries in the matter. On the charge of having ordered whisky for Murray without his authority Mrs. Johnson was fined £lO and 19s 6d costs.