CHEAP SUNDAY DINNERS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 955, 6 August 1880, Page 3

CHEAP SUNDAY DINNERS.

The Daily Times has the following Maclagcan street, in the neighborhood of the business premises of Messrs A. and J. M Farlane, grocers, and of Mr \V. Patrick, butcher, presented an extraordinary scene of animation on Saturday night last. Quite a revival has taken place in the meat trade since the advent of Messrs Shand and Worth’s ertablishment, and the displays made at the various butchers’ shops on Friday and Saturday nights would have done credit to the proprietors as Christmas shows instead of being the ordinary weekly display. Going a shale beyond the reduction in prices which has resulted from increased competition, Mr Patrick advertised that after 0 o’clock on Saturday night, poor people, unable to pay for a joint, would bo supplied free ; and liis next door neighbors, Messrs A. and J. M'Parlane, also intimated by advertisement that heads of families, unable to pay, would be supplied with bread and potatoes free, in order to complete the Sunday’s dinner of butcher meat ■ft)'bo-supplied by Mr Patrick. M'Farlane and Co. bad their larg- stock of goods displayed in the windows and throughout the shop in a most artistic manner. Their commodious premises enabled thorn to do this most effectively, and wo must confess we have not before seen anything like it in the Colonies. To add to the effect, also, the electric light, fixed on a building immediately opposite, was brought to boar directly on their premises, and tins, with the addition of a number of flags stretched overhead, and the largo crowd which thronged the street, gave the neighborhood a most unusual appearance. Mr Patrick’s display of meat was very large, amongst it being some of the first lambs of the season. To prove that the promised free distribution of provisions did not end with words cu’y,

wa are enabled to state that Mr Patrick gave away to poor people one whole body of hoof and ten sheep, and Messrs M’Farlane an 1 Co. about 250 loaves and 20 hags of potatoes. It is not very cheering to think that there exists in Dunedin such an amount of distress as this large distribution of food seems to indicate, for it is not to bo expected that it could bo continued by butchers and grocers after their first experience of the extent to which their generosity may be drawn upon. Probably few in Dunedin, except these who have had control ot our Benevolent Institution, and who in other ways may have had special means of obtaining an insight into the poverty which exists, have any idea of its extent. We feel bound to add, however, that there is reason to believe the charity was in some instances abused, and that persons who obtained the free supply ha I previously spent On drink the m niey with which they might have bought the articles iu the usual way.”