THE SLY GROG NUISANCE.

Kumara Times, Issue 865, 9 July 1879, Page 2

THE SLY GROG NUISANCE.

[to THE EDITOR.] . * Sir—There seems a strange state of affairs in, this town at' present. The G. Ts. howl at the publicans,, and even go so far as to send a petition to. the Licensing Officer. I dont exact purport thereof, but should suspect it to be a protest against so many hotels to the population; but they in their wisdom seem to forget that under the cloak of cordial sellers, and in defiance of all law there are many in this town who sell as much spirituous liquor as most of the publicans. Now, sir, I contend that were they to devote some of their well-meant energies toward* the rectifying of this evil, which L gradually assuming gigantic proportions, especially on this and other goldfields, they would do more towards furthering the glorious cause of Temperance than all the legislation they can bring to bear on the subject. The pains and penalties under which the publican lies is a sufficient safeguard for the general public, except in very few cases, and they are easily dealt with.

This good town of Kumara is particularly infested by a set of dishonourable persons who not only sell on the sly, lint have the impudence to do so with as near an approach to hotels in appearance as they dare to go. In fact, in a great many eases they even have the name and designation over their doors, thereby deceiving the publie, robbing the revenue, and injuring the legal trader. In my peregrinations through Kumara and the outlying district, 1 chanced to drop into a hotel, and heard two respectable men discussing the probability whether there would be any more publicans’ licenses taken out in the special licensing district of. Kumara, or not, as in case of being caught, all they had to do was to appeal, and Judge Weston would reverse the Magistrate’s decision. A sad state of affairs, surely, when vested interests cannot be protected, and when one who should be perfectly just fosters by his judgments the infraction of the'law,

can it be wondered at that such a contingency may hap.-cn, and that everyone should defy the law and carrv on an illicit trade 1 By his decisions the police are, to use a vulgarism, “ handcuffed” .in this matter. 1 ner d n>t dilate upon the oftt <ld tale of drunkenness and crime, well known; but I would direct,-the attention of the, U.Ts. and the authority to the real source of intemperance-and vice.—l am, &c., . ... . Justice. Kumara, July 8,4879,-