CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 201, 25 August 1874, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

TBE LATE TRIAL —WHAT IS THE TRUE POSITION op a. PUBLICAN? / To THB EniTOB OF THB EvBHIKO MaH,/ Sib — The late melancholy trial for wifemurder haa elicited from the jury an depression of opinion which will, let us hope/ yet produce good results and tell both üban public and upon official opinion. ' The lory attached a rider to their verdict—" Tha« the authorities, knowing the life that the prig mer and hia wife were leading, should have refused him a license to sell drink." Certainly it is a melancholy satire v _on our present system of licensing that %a came out" "upon thia trial) long after ffc. haa become notorious that a publcan and his wife get drunk in their public-house and light, that publican may never-/ ' theleaa get hia license renewed 1 Without going farther into this individual case./it irresistibly suggests the general question, What is a publican's true position ? Vasious circumstances and arguments lately useyboth - at home and abroad, appear to indicate A very erroneous popular view; that the publican is / a man with valuable vested rights, [which/ ought not to be touched. His Hcensetiailooke^ upon far too much as a personal pHvilfge rather than aa a public trust, wheWas I contend that the publican should be regarded as a trusted servant of the public; thaXis, a servant of the public trusted to distruVute stores of too dangeroua a character for an* but thoroughly trustworthy men to be in charge of; aud no precautions or restrictions '< _ ahould be considered too irksome. Inordinary \ stores, dictation as to a man's boots would be considered highly impertinent ; in .ay / powder-nngazine the order to wear li&f slippers is cheerfully submitted to. *£___ publican's license should be regnrded/not merely aa a profitable right bought -of the Government: by an ordinary tradesman both with money, and by submission to annoying restrictions, but rather as a certificate of fitness, like a Board of Trade's certificate of the fitness of a master mariner to comrmni a abip.j: The master of a publichouae getting 1 drunk ahould be treated.aa the maater of a fhip getting drunk, and, like him, ahould lose hia certificate, not at next licensing day, but / aa soon as the offence should be -proved/ against him. In auch a case no mercy should be ahewu; the profitable monopoly attaching 1 to the discharge bf a public trust Should be ] unhesitatingly swept away, together : withtiie trust which had ibeea. abused. Uf a powdermagazine keeper and his wii c were discovered <

about the magazine with bare lighted candles, would the authorities wait till nc;t quarter-day to discharge them ? I trow not. And go there should be legal authority not merely to refute a license, on next annu .1 application, to a publican who gets drunk, but also to turn him out at once. And even a drunken landlady should not be tolerate!. The master of a ship would not be allowed to employ a drunken mac ; neither ahould the master of a publichouse. If public opinion were as keen about morals a3 it is about money, we should not ace such j a staring anomaly as thia: That a man to ! whom authority has been gravely committed to sell certain stores considered too dangerous to. be left to be sold by everybody or anybody, should te continued in this position of authority after he himself has, in bis own/ person and his wife'e, given a conspicuous example of their dangerouaness ! I a-u, &c, CITIZBN (NOT A. TBETOTALLBB, NOB ONB , OFTHE JUBY). Nelaon, Auguat 22, 1874. ." i s J [In justice. to the Licensing Commissidaers who granted Boseley his license on the last occasion, it should be stated that no representations were made by tho po'ice ot ithe condition in which he and his late wife were only too frequently found.— En. N. E.M_