The Globe. TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1876.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 548, 21 March 1876, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1876.

We are much indebted to the Star of yesterday for calling our attention to our promised reference to the special disadvantages under which the licensed victualler carries on his trade. We have no wish to be ranked as defenders of crooked whisky-sellers, nor as champions of the vendors of drugged beer, neither is it our ambition to take this particular trade under our •* protection” any more than we would any other class which stands in need of being set right with the public. To say, as our contemporary does, that “ the publican is at the mercy of the “ police just so much as a drunken “ man or a burglar, and no more,” is a very neatly-turned argument, which means nothing more nor less than a disbelief in the premises we hold. We say that it is a disgrace to the community that respectable people cannot visit a public hotel even for the purpose of seeing their private friends who are staying there, without hearing such a remark by a member of the force as—“ That they are well known “ to the police.” And we wish it known to the writer in the Star that the “sweet will ” so ingeniously brought into his metaphorical disquisition does not alter the fact that a very large majority of the hotelkeepers of this city and surrounding districts are as law abiding subjects of Her Majesty the Queen as any in Her Majesty’s dominions. Should he wish confirmation on this head, let him sedulously enquire into the annoyances and attacks to which the heads of these hotels are subjected. It may be a a good method to attempt to increase the circulation of a journal by simpering along with a half outstretched hand toward certain bodies inimical to freedom of speech and action, afraid either to go on or to draw back; but this is a system we do not admire. We believe in calling a spade a spade, and not a shovel. Does our contemporary know or have any idea what this public house surveillance costs the people of Canterbury ? Taking his own words —■“ The doctors have only to be asked, “ and they will tell you that a large “ percentage of the illness and the “ {Badness in this town has been caused

“ by the disgusting way in which the “ liquor sold by the publicans has been “ doctored.” This must cost a considerable sum ; but when we consider the percentage of crime that is set down to the account of the publican it becomes really alarming. It will probably be sufficient to take a moderate percentage of the whole, say, onethird. We have heard it stated at various percentages from ten per cent to ninety per cent, but we will see what an enormous sum the thirty-three-and-a-third pei cent will amount to for the province of Canterbury alone. We quote the estimates for the year ending March 31st, 1876 Gaols, £6BBB 1s lid; police, £23,580 2s; hospitals, £8115; Lunatic Asylum, £8396 6s ss; buildings in connection with gaols and hospitals, and Lunatic Asylum,£2o,4B7, and police buildings, £6798 19s 3d, making a total of £74,265 9s 7d, without taking into account the sums which are paid by the General Government as salaries for Eesident Magistrates, clerks, rent of Court Houses, &c, &c, which we may roughly estimate at another £IO,OOO, which will make a total of £84,265 9s 7d. Well take a third of this sura, and we find that no less than £28,088 9s lid is what is moderately set down as the cost to this province for one year, for the surveillance of the hotel-keepers and the taking care of the victims of their mal-prac-tices. It is, we think, high time that the public became acquainted with fhe extraordinary fallacies which are foisted upon them. We do not credit but that a truthful examination, into the statistics of crime, insanity, sickness, and drunkenness in this province, would show a result of 1 per cent, which could consistently be charged against the licensed victualler. ,We have no defence for the man who adds deleterious compounds to the liquor ho vends, we believe he is deserving of all the obloquy that the Star or any other journal can heap upon him.