SUNDAY DRINKING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1989, 7 November 1888, Page 2

SUNDAY DRINKING.

TO THE B^TQB. Sir, — It ib an open secret, or perhaps I ■h >uld say a well known fact, that Sunday drinking is systematically carried on Jo. ■averal, if not m all, the hotels of ABfcbarton. No one thinks of denying it, the Magistrates know it, the Police acknowledge it; it is >\ trm'om whioh soarcely bears repeating. A married woman came to me on Monday last to tell me that her hasband came home on Sunday afternoon, very much the worse for liquor,. She said she could not bear it any longer and asked me if I could do anything. She meutioned that some fout weeks ago, she had occasion to go one Sunday evening at six o'clock, for a reason which yonr readers can guesa, into orq of oar hotels *nd saw there, with her own eyes, some 20 or 30 parsons, including one man of very good position, to all appearance drinking. I have been to several of the Justices of the, Peaoo and they say that nothing can be done. I have been to the Police and they tell me that the law is bo framed as to loave innumerable loop-holes for escape and to render a conviction amost impossible. They nay, too, that the sympathy of the public Is with the breakers of the law, and that when a. o&ae. howaver Btrong, is brought hefore the Bench it almoßt invarwbty breaks down. - 1 would gla.djy help the person to whom I hftve referred, m her very proper qesire for protection and redreßß, and the more co that she is probably one of a large number. But, unhappily, I know not what to do. Can you or any of your readers suggest anything, or mt^t we quietly ait down and let thjnga take their oourse. This ie^ I know, only one aspeot of a very la»ge question, the whole of which seems to me m a very unsatisfactory position. If a man were fouad ia the eireot unconscious through an overdose of laudanum, it would Boon be found out from Tifhp.m the drug was procured. But i a thousand persona may be" found iv a helpleni state of intoxication, without any searching enquiry or an enquiry of any kind, being made as to who served the liquor and received money for the liquor or even as to the kind of liquor that was supplied. This may be all according to law, but if so, I submit that the law is m an egregiously had ata.t e and neada amending, ? I .pfla, etc., The Parsonage ' ' Ashburton, November, 7th 1888, ]