TRADE TOPICS

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1065, 4 August 1910, Page 20

TRADE TOPICS

Mr, J. Smith, late of Papakura, has taken over the Railway Terminus Hotel, Onehunga. Mr. Smith is well and favourably known to the travelling public, and under his regime the Railularity.

The Central Hotel, Patea, has changed hands during the past couple of days. Mr. W. Gregg late mine host

of the Empire Hotel. at Hawera, has purchased Mr. Wimsett’s interest in the Central and took possession on Monday last. Mr. and Mrs.. Wimsett contemplate taking a trip to Australia shortly.

Archdeacon Boyce of Sydney, has submitted a statement showing that the drink bill decreased by £45,900. last year. He attributes the decrease to restrictive legislation. The New South Wales drink bill last year amounted to £5,317,682, equal to £3

5s 5d per head of the population, a decrease of 2s Id per head, compared with the previous year.

In the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. Tudor (Minister for Cus--toms) said he was aware that South African wines were admitted to New Zealand on better terms than Australian. He added that he would be prepared to consider some reciprocal treatment with New Zealand which would place Australian wines on an equal footing.

We- learn that Mrs. O’Neill has disposed of her interest in the Stratford Club Hotel to Mr. Charles Diamond, formerly of the Albion Hotel, Patea.

At Wellington on Monday, Norman Reginald Smith was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment for sly-grog selling. William Robert Swanson was similarly penalised- Two young men who were caught in one of the premises raided were each fined £2.

• The Kelvin Hotel, at Belfast, was burned to the ground last week. Three of the boarders were burnt to death and five badly injured while jumping out of the windows.

Tne award relating to the Wellington Cooks’ and Waiters’ Union, which came into force on August 1, clashes with statute law at one point. Section 4 of the award states: “A week’s work for all classes of hotel-workers covered by this award shall not exceed 65 hours.” This section includes barmaids. Clause 1, section 162, of the Licensing Act, provides: “No female, other than the licensee or the wife or daughter of the licensee, as the case be, shall be employed in the bar of any licensed house for more than 10 hours in each day of 24 hours, and no female except as aforesaid shall with or without her consent be employed in the bar of any licensed house after the hour of 11 at night.” As the bar has to be closed on Sundays, the Act thus stipulates that a barmaid’s hours shall not exceed 60 per week.

Speaking on “Public-house Reform” at a special meeting of the council of the Charity Organisation Society, Mr. R. Cripps (secretary of the People’s Refreshment House Association) London, declares that the . ideal reformed house would, by its general appearance, help the manager to realise that he was not an ordinary publican. No brewer’s or distiller’s name would appear, and inside the house there would be no advertisements of beer and spirits other than the printed

price lists. The bars themselves would have a certain stock ready to hand, but that would be exposed -as little as possible. In place of the ordinary framed advertisements of whisky there would be pictures and wellprinted notices calling attention to the serving of tea, coffee, and food. Their presence and the general decoration and arrangement of the house wtfilid all help both the manager and the customers by automatic suggestion.

The business at the next meeting of the Pahiatua Licensing Committee, to be held at Woodville on 'Friday, September 2nd, will include applications for the transfer of' licenses in respect to the following four hotels:— Kumeroa Hotel, from Mr. Bright to Mr. Fletcher (Te Nui); Makuri Hotel, from Mr. P. T.- Pedersen to Mr. Potts (Wanganui); Dudley Arms Hotel (Mangatairibka), from Mr. T. Grace to Mrs. Brewer (Wellington); Wimbledon Hotel, from Mr. Bell to Mr. Pacey.

The Rutland Hotel, Wanganui has always been a popular rendezvous with the travelling public, and scarcely needs any further recommendation. It has recently been taken over by Mr. Thos. Lawless, formerly mine host of the Stratford Hotel, Stratford, and under his experienced supervision, it cannot fail to increase in favour and worthily uphold its high standard of excellence. The hotel has been rebuilt and newly furnished in an up-to-date style. The reading, writing and smoke rooms are replete with every convenience, and an air of comfort and luxury pervades all the appointments. “The Home of the Tourist,” the Rutland Hotel has been termed, and in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Lawless, who are both well known throughout the Auckland Provincial district, it is true to its name, for friends, old and new can depend on a warm welcome and a pleasant stay.

It has been left to a German to establish the first reformed public-house in London. Presumably he has got all his plans passed for the establishment which will shortly be opened in Oxford Street, near the Circus. Comfortable chairs and lounges will be provided and a man will be able to take his "glass of beer or whisky while his wife sips her tea or coffee. Chess, draughts and dominoes will be provided and there will be a plentiful supply of papers and periodicals. The experiment will be watched with interest, but after all, the L. V. Gazette informs us, Mr. Appenrodt has been practically forestalled by Lyons and Co., who have a number of so-called restaurants where alcoholic liquor is obtainable. The Oxford Street public-house, we are told, is to be practically a club without a subscription.

The New York correspondent of the Daily Mail, reports that Mr. J. D. Rockfeller’s physicians have ordered whisky baths owing to his lowered vitality, and that he rises at daybreak for this purpose. Mr. Rockfeller’s enemies, it is reported, bitterly* assailed him until his consumption of whisky was explained.

It is astonishing what the public will endure from these “tea-poper” cranks, (says Sydney “Fair Play”.) Townsmen will sit calmly at a “rousing” temperance lecture, and unmoved, hear statements which they know of their own personal knowledge are untrue of their fellow-townsmen who cater for the public in hotels. All the epithets which are bestowed upon the low negro dive in Georgia, or in the Bowery, are copied from the American “temperance” press, and shot at the decent Australian hotelkeeper. The listeners in our country towns know that the statements are untrue, as applied to our local circumstances. If some of the statements were true, it would mean that the whole of the State Police and Crown Law Departments are debauched and bribed to remain silent, while there are perpetual and flagrant derelictions of the laws of the country. Usually the average citizen laughs over the lecture the following morning;: and abates nothing in his courtesy towards or friendship for the local hotelkeeper if he is the good fellow he usually is. But the “average citizen” ought, when he knows the temperance lecturer is relating a fable, get up and hit him with a brick.

Messrs Dwan Bros., Willis Street, Wellington, report having sold the lease, furniture and goodwill of Hastie’rs Hotel,. Feilding, to Mr. Henry

Shotlander (late of the Inglewood Hotel, Inglewood); Mrs. Quinn’s interest in the Prince of Wales Hotel, Tory Street, Wellington, to Mr., M. O’Brien (late of Sydney); Mr. R. J. Paul’s interest in the Mount Egmont Hotel, Midhirst, Taranaki, to Mr. J antes O’Connell, of Stratford; MrThomas Green’s interest in the lease, goodwill and furniture of the Post Office Hotel, Picton, to Mr. Samuel M’lntyre (late of the Commercial Hotel, Westport); Mr. G. H. William’s interest in the lease, furniture and goodwill of the Masonic Hotel, Blenheim, to Mr. R. J. Paul (late of Mid-, hirst); the and goodwill of the Royal Oak Hotel, Pyrmont, Sydney, N.S.W., to Mr. Thomas Nott (formerly of Eketahuna); Mrs. O’Neill’s interest in the lease, furniture and goodwill of the Club Hotel, Stratford, to Mr. Charles Diamond (for many years in business in the Albion Hotel, Patea); Mr. Bell’s interest in the lease, furniture and goodwill of the Wimbledon Hotel, Wimbledon, Hawke’s Bay, to Mr. William Pacey (late of Levin); the freehold of the Taueru Hotel, Taueru, Wairarapa, to Mr. W. B. Ingham (late of Kaikoura). Messrs. Dwan Bros., also report having sold freehold farm of 700 acres in the Inglewood district, to Mr. Hubert Collyns (late of Rangiora and Kaikoura, (South Island), for the] sum of £8,400.

The Court of Appeal, in a Shoreditch assessment case, according to a London cable, upheld the Divisional Court’s declaration that an increase in license duty under the Budget of 1910 was prima facie evidence of a reduction in the value of a publichouse. The cost of the license in this instance was suddenly raised from £35 to £l3O, equivalent to half. the rent of the tenant. For assessment purposes the Court was now entitled to deduct the increase in duty on £2 60 whereat it was formerly rated.

In the recent Illinois (U.S.A.) campaign, thirty-nine towns changed from “dry” to “wet,” and only nineteen towns changed from “wet” to “dry.” This is a distinctive gain in favour of regulation, and such reports are much more satisfactory than those; that we have been in. the habit in the past of securing, where our conventions would be told that during. the year there had been so many fights, the “wets” winning the majority of them, where in fact we had simply won in a certain number of “wet” towns and in no “dry” places, and where most of the “dry” victories were at the expense of the “wet” territory. In the Nebraska fight the “wets” also gained ground, but in Michigan we gained only two counties from the “dry” column, and lost twelve counties from the “wet” column. In speaking of this, the St. Louis “Republic” in a recent issue says:—“The most impressive feature of the elections this spring in which prohibition has been the issue, is the number of communities of considerable population which have tested the no-license plan and have abandoned it.” —Bononforts.”