DRINKING DURING FLEET WEEK

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 292, 3 September 1908, Page 7

DRINKING DURING FLEET WEEK

: ALLEGATIONS REITERATED. ; ;•' PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE. ' lILE «RAri!.—MECUI COUItESrONDENT.) ; Chrlstohurch. September 2. ..The alleged drunkenness in Auckland dur-. iiifc Fleet Week is still the subject of prohibitionists' addresses. The Rev. Mr. Palm&yof Sydnoy, who is lecturing on behalf of the prohibitionist party here just now, asserted some days ago that he had witnessed a bacchanalian orgy" in Auckland on that oocasion. His statements have been denied by;the other side, but ho is not convinced that he was wrong, and yesterday both in on. open-air address m Cathedral Square in the afternoon and in his evening lccturo he emphasised 'his assertions. "I went to some of tKe; public-houses," ho said, "although not for ; drink, and witnessed men in some of them standing four and five deep at the bars like a lot of thirsty sheep at a stream, while the beer was being handed out from Mimd.tfc# bar over the heads of those nearest the barman. I saw six or eight young men walking down Queen Street arm-in-arm trying to hold one another up." Ho bod seen Mr. Leonard Isitt in regard to the statements attributed to him. Mr, Isitt had said that the behaviour of tho American Fleet was very commendable, but that tho drinking of Auckland was deplorable. Mr. Isitt, in a letter to the papers, declares that dliring several days of Fleet Week drunken men wero to bo counted by the score reeling in and out of the public-nouses, staggering along the streets. "On the Wednesday I saw eight fights' in about twenty minutes at; the racecourse. .The sailors wero lying; round dead drunk by the half-dozen, and a van ha<l actually to be chartered to cart them away. L have snapshots taken to provo the trnth of this, and if tho liquor men have got any common-senso they will leave Mr. Palmor alono." It is announced that if the negatives of these photographs arrive in time lantern pictures will bo made of them, and they will be shown at- Mr. Palmer's address On Sunday evening.