The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2990, 25 January 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1881.

Every now and again, almost with the regularity of an epidemic, " the terrors of the law " are enforced against licensed victuallers who may be guilty of a breach of the Licensing Act. By degrees, like a disease, as though worn out by its own intensity, police espionage ceases, the minds of the publicans and of tbe public become easier, and the beer trade flourishes as formerly. After m. long absence of police supervision the colonial publican is once more reminded of certain provisions of the Act that debar him from selling beer on a Sunday, and once again is every one suspicious and rendered uncomfortable. 1 his epidemic of goodyism is now about at its height. Nearly every weetc our telegrams tiom all parts of the colony report that penalties have been enf'oreed against some unlucky publican for Sunday trading ; and as a matter of course, whereever these examples have been made, the means of obtaining the Sunday dinner beer have been curtailed, or else tbe family beverage has to be procured by surreptitious aids. All the espionage that the police are capable of will not entirely prevent liquor traffic on Sunday, so we are forced to the conclusion that, while it is impossible to discover every case of law breaking, some are punished, while others trade with impunity. The licensing law, and the nature of a publican's business, are such that there are innumerable roads by which, if necessary, a whole procession of coaches-and-four can be driven through the Act. Andthisbeing so notoriously the case the publican who happens to be found out is regarded, not as one justly puniehed, but one who has no little claim on the sympathy of all lovers of justice. The case of Mr Limbrick, of the Royal Hotel, as an instance in point. He pleaded guilty to having sold a jug of beer on Sunday before last to a regular customer. He had not been caught in the act, but, as we are informed, a policeman stopped a little girl having the jug of beer in her hand, and ascertained from her where it bad been procured. Now we should like to know where, in the code of either religion or morality, the guilt lies; if it be wrong for the publican to sell, it is equally wicked for the thirsty to drink the beer. Yet no one will be so insane as to declare shat it is irreligious to drink beer at dinner on a Sunday. From church dignitaries downwards, if tastes and purses permit, bottled ale is pretty certain to make its appearance at dinner every day of the week. If the Bishop may take his alcohol from his cellar on a Sunday, where ie the evil in the poor man going to hie cellar and getting his jug of beer ? And the public-house is the poor man's cellar. Any one belonging to a Club can get what he wants; so can the rich in their private houses. Licensing laws for tbe control of the liquor trade are good and useful meaeuree, but they can be, and often are,

made to press unduly upon one class of a community, by which crime is created, and offences invented.