DUNEDIN.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2625, 7 June 1877, Page 2

DUNEDIN.

Wednesday. A public meeting was held in the Temperance Hall last night to consider the Local Option Bill. About 800 people were present. The Mayor presided, • and the following resolutions were carried :— " That, in the opinion of this meeting, the principal embodied in the bill is equitable, practicable, and likely to afford the public relief from many evils resulting from the consumption of intoxicating liquors." "That, in the opinion of this meeting, no system of licensing laws has yet been effective for the prevention of those evils to prevent which they were enacted, and, therefore, a change is necessary both in the principle and method of the laws of dealing -with the liquor trade. In the opinion of this meeting, a very

large proportion of vice, crime, disease, poverty, and other social evils which exist in this colony, are the direct result of.the traffic in and the use of alcoholic beverages." A petition for presentation to the Assembly was also submitted and approved. Mr McLaren interrupted, and a free fight ensued, which ended in his being thrown down stairs, and put into the street. Yesterday afternoon the Presbytery met in committee to receive suggestions as to the subject for a new chair to be endowed by the Synod. It was agreed in committee to lay before the Presbytery the following subjects :—•:lst. English language, literature, and constitutional history. 2nd. Moral philosophy and political economy. 3rd. Constitutional history and political economy.