MISTAKEN ZEAL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 271, 21 February 1879, Page 2

MISTAKEN ZEAL.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail

Sib, —For sme time past I have been an annual visitor to Akaroa, and am therefore in a position to know how severely the closing of Wagstaff's Hotel has been felt by those who were accustomed to stay there, and to what a considerable extent the absence of the accommodation afforded by it will affect intending visitors. It is an acknowledged fact that your pretty little town will seriously feel the closing of this house, and I was glad on that account to hear lately that there was some chance of the hotel being re-opened. Imagine, then, ray astonishment and indignation on learning yesterday that some fanatical busy bodies were striving their utmost to keep the house closed, by interfering with the granting of a bar license to its proprietor on the grounds of temperance, philanthropy, humanity, and such like clap-trap. This means that your community as a whole must suffer no small loss because a few amongst you, who wilj drink anywhere and everywhere, might perchance get intoxicated in a different place than usual, or lest, where four public-houses have failed to overcome Bobriety, the fifth may be too much for resolution. What bigoted rubbish and short-sighted policy this is! I trust that Licensing Commissioners and the Akaroa public will not be influenced by this mistaken zeal on the part of those who, if they could only see it, do more harm than good to their cause by meddlesome actions of this kind.—"Yours, &c,