The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. MONDAY, MAY 19, 1879.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 961, 19 May 1879, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. MONDAY, MAY 19, 1879.

I?t oar Saturday's issue we mentioned that by fara greater number of offences against taw and good order are committed in Oamaru, just prior to the commencement of shearing, in the interval which intervened between shearing and the beginning of harvest operations, and immediatelyafter the harvest has been gathered, than daring any other portion of the year. We deduced from fits fact the conclusion that most of the crimes recorded in the police annals were traceable to the floating population—men who come here to seek employment during the busy seasons, and are followed by Others who hope to benefit in some direction by the free spending of large cheques with which these shearers and harvest hands return to town. Havinarrived at this conclusion, we promised to point out some means by which the evil might be lessened, and crime considerably reduced. Everyone who pays any heed to such matters nnt3t have noticed that by far the greater number of offences which come before the Resident Magistrate are cither directly or indirectly attributable to drink. While drunkenness itself is the chief offence, so far as the number of cases go, recorded in the police calendars, we are convinced, from a close observation of the cases brought under the notice of his Worship, that nearly the whole of the larcenies committed are indirectly the result of over-indulgence in the intoxicating cup. It is a very common thing to hear a prosecutor acknowledge that" ho had been drinking freely in the company of the prisoner, and that, when his sober senses returned to him, he missed his pocket-book, money, watch. »Vc. Now, tn a very large of these cases, we are assured that the drink taken by the unfortunate, if erring, shearer or harvester, was not obtained in a licensed house. True, it very* often transpires that he had been drinking in a public house; but in the very great majority of cases we find him taken to one or other of the sly grog shop 3 that infest the town, and it is here that the finishing touch i 3 given to the work previously commenced in the licensed house. It must, have been a patent fact to- all observers that these so-called boarding houses are the rendezvous of the lowest ctasses of persons—known, if not convicted thieves and blackguards, who are encouraged to patronise them for ihe purpose of assisting in squeezing the utmost shilling out of the foolish chequepossessor's pocket. Rut it is not only in this direction that these sly grog shops d» thetr fleecing work. It is very often the ease that men returning from their labours up-country are forced to seek lodgings in these sly grog shops, and they are thus unwillingly brought into contact with the " hawks/' There is often no other course open to them to adopt than that of taking up their temporary abode in these slygrog shops : the hotels are generally full of boarders, private boarding houses arc closed against them, and of thoroughly respectable public lodging-houses there is next to Jisf. We know that on mam occasions working men arriving in town have applied to the police for information as to where a temperance hotel or boardinghouse, where drink is unknown, could be found. This fact dearly shows that many of these men are by no means led into the haunts of the wary " hawks " from pure choice : indeed we should be sorry to think for one moment that even a decent-sized ! minority of the itinerant laborers find in ■ these places congenial spheres of existence. Sheer necessity and the absence of any power of making a choice compel them to become inmates of these places. Once f inside, they soon, through the free and easy style adopted by the proprietors, become"thoroughly acclimatised, and sink ' down to the level of the other inmates. ' The fact that they are possessed of a purse tiberalty supplied with current coin enables them to command alt withinthe household, .and become a kind of despotic monarch. This very often leads a man. whose intentions niiiv bo £ood. but who does not possess sufficient moral courage to withstand temptation, to scatter his money freely and indiscriminately, heedless of results. Everyone knows what the end of this is. The man himself takes freely to drink, and falls an easy prey to those around him, who are ready to help themselves. Now, what is the remedy for this state of affairs ? In some measure the evil might be met by hedging round public • todirimi-honses with stringent regulations— reflations that would enable the Corporation to withhold a license in any case where the proprietor was detected selling liquor or harboring bad characters, and empower the Magistrate tointlict heavy 'penalties on any public boarding-house beeper pursninc his calling without a license. This wouldtead tothcclosingofany ; undesirable house, and give the honest boarding-house keeper, anxious to carry ott his business in a proper manner, every encouragement to do so. But, though this might in a measure meet the difficulty, the only effectual means of checking "the evil lies in the establishment of realtv temperance hotels places where working men could obtain board and lodging at a moderate charge, and secure the comforts of a home and the means of pass in ir their evenings in a healthy, harmless, but enjoyable and self-improv-in - manner —establishments plentifully s-ir—bed v tr ; ! papers a-id periodicals, ar.d i . :* • ; !t !';L'etive it! ' rv i' ■ n.1.1 amuseruvu:. W »•;»• such temperance hotels established here, v e [<'-■! sure that they would become highly! popular, and return handsome profits ; but they must be more comfortable, and thereforemore attractive, than the ordinary boarding-houses styled temperance hotels. The only claim which thev can put forth to the title is to be found in the fact that the introduction of drink into them is forbidden by the landlords. They must possess something more than a score of i bedrooms with bat one other ill-famished

| room made to do duty as a dining-room, I sitting-room, &c. They must, in fact, jprescnt all the accommodr.t'on of a hotel ! without ihe bar and its concomitants. If i private enterprise is not forthcoming to establish such temperance hotels, the ma." ter is one that might fairly be underi taken by a public company as a speculation, and that, too, "with every prospect of I finencial success. The subject is one that is attracting considerable attention elsewhere in the colonies with the best results, and it is well worthy of consideration here. If our temperance bodies are really in eamcstintheirdesireto check the spread of drunkenness they might seriously devote some attention to it.