The Globe. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1874.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 80, 2 September 1874, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1874.

The present Public House Ordinance seems to work in a very unsatisfactory manner. Week after week, sundry publicans make their appearance before the Resident Magistrates in the various towns of the province, and they are usually summoned for serving drink on a Sunday. It is a curious fact that some of the licensed victuallers in Christchurch seem to possess an immunity from these unpleasant results of police visitation on the first day of the week, whilst nobody acquainted with the town will deny, that if he is so minded, there is no difficulty in obtaining a “ modest quencher,” even in the houses which seem to be secure from police surveillance. Again, in some hotels in the town, the front door stands partially open throughout the Sunday, ostensibly, of course, for the egress and entrance of lodgers, whilst at other caravanserais the lodger or traveller must effect his entrance by a back slum, and get in the best way he can by evil-smelling rights-of-way, and tortuous passages into the house. The police and the publicans have each a hard task set them, and we cannot wonder at the apparent partiality with which the publicans who are not summoned are treated. The police aro expected to report any breach of the Act that may come under their notice, and they usually know where these breaches may be expected to be committed. They take their plans accordingly and certain publicans, who seem never to get wiser by previous experience, suffer periodically. We should think it highly improbable, that the profits arising from Sunday trading, for even three or four mouths, were in excess of the fines which are levied when a clear case is proved against the proprietor of a licensed house , and we wonder at the lust for gain, which inducts a man who has been fined before, to risk another fine, and the certainty of the fact being remembered against him on the next licensing day, for the sake of the very small amount of profit which results from serving a few inveterate topers with drink on a Sunday. However as long as intoxicating beverages are required by any members of the population on the Sunday, so long will there

be found men who will take ail the risks of supplying them with liquor. The case of some of our hotel-keepers is we think a hard one —there are almost invariably a number of permanent lodgers at each hotel in town, and it is only in the natural order of things, that acquaintances of these lodgers, who may not feel inclined to go and listen to the exhortations of any of the rev gentlemen who hold forth on a Sunday in this town, should choose that morning for calling and having a chat with these said lodgers. Refreshment is as a matter of course profferred, and (equally as a matter of course, unless the visitor should be a Gfocd Templar) accepted. Whilst engaged in conversation, a third person, who is a stranger to the other two, enters the room, and the proprietor of the hotel naturally fails to see the culpability of serving three drinks instead of two, and lays himself open to the pains and penalties thereby. Again, an employe in the hotel taking advantage of the quiet time he may expect on Sunday morning, requests a friend to call on him on that day. Both of them are busily engaged during the week, and Sunday is the only day on which they can make certain of a quiet hour’s conversation. Yet in a case like this, an energetic officer will conceive it to be his duty to inform against the licensee of the house, if the employe has offered his friend a glass of beer. The case is evidently absurd. The fact is, that as long as men are permitted to obtain strong drink during six days of the week, they will require the privilege of obtaining it, for a certain number of hours at least, on the other day. The remedy seems to be, that licensed victuallers shall have the option of being able to open a certain portion of the hotel, or publichouse, for a specified time on the Sunday, and shall be liable to a more severe punishment than ever, if they supply drink to any outsider except during this time. Those publicans who are members of the Sunday Observance League, and who do not think fit, for that or any other reason, to open their bar on the Sunday, need not do so, and the number who would avail themselves of the privilege would be ample to supply the wants of Christchurch people and of travellers. Under the present Act no one knows how soon that most despicable class of human beings—informers —may not be practising their miserable business in this city.