Untitled

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 228, 5 December 1874, Page 2

At a weekly meeting a straiglif-laced and most exemplary deacon submitted a report in writing of the destitute widows who stood in need of assistance from the congregation. “ Are you sure, deacon,” asked another sober brother, “ that yon 'nave embraced all the widows He said he believed he had. The Licensing Act (Fox’s) is causing great trouble in all the provinces ; but it tffliefs Otago with greater severity than any other town or city of the two Islands. The question at issue now in Dunedin is, whether a licensed victualler may have more than one bar, aud, if so, under what circumstances? One R.M. gives the interpretation of the Act one way, and a second another, while a third disputes either, and insists upon his own rendering. Ou the 3rd instant, in Dunedin, three leading hotel-keepers came up to hear judgment upon charges made against them for maintaining more than one bar on their premises, when Mr. Bathgate relieved himself with the following deliverance, which, perhaps, entitles him to the credit of taking' a very common-sense view- of clauses so intricate and little understandable that only a lawyer could have framed them. Mr. Bathgate says (we give Mr. Bathgate’s interpretation to assist our own Licensing Bench to arrive at some definite conclusion on this moot question): —“I have looked into this question, and have come to the conclusion that the prohibition in the Licensing Act, 1873, as to more than one bar being on the premises, only applies to ‘ public bars.’ These are defined to mean any room, passage, or lobby in any licensed publichouse open immediately to any street, highway, or thoroughfare, wherein the public may enter and purchase any spirituous or ‘ fermented liquors.’ The plain meaning of this definition is that the room, passage, or lobby, where the bar is placed must open to the public street without anything between it and the s reet. The word ‘immediately ’ sign!fl s literally without a middle, that is, without anything between or intervening. If, therefore, a bar is situated in a room, passage, or 1 'bby which does not open immediately to the street, it is not a public bar in the terms of the Act. I find that in none of the cases brought before the Court is the second bar so placed as to be fairly w'ithin the Statute as a public bar.’’ —Otago Guardian. Appropriate. —Very blonde hair is known as the “ light fantastic tow.”