SLY GROG SELLING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 58, 20 March 1869, Page 3

SLY GROG SELLING.

(To the Editor of the Tuapeka Times.) Sir, — Allow me through the medium of your columns to call the attention of the proper authorities to the present popular means of becoming a householder, viz., starting a shanty or sly grog selling, as the subject is one that bubbles

up 'every now an,d again and then falls into oblivion. I will endeavour in the first place to show the reason for this, and in the second to show a few of the evils that arise from its being allowed. It is a known fact that there is not a business that requires such a small outlay combined with so certain a remuneration as grog selling. From this fact we must take an explanation for the enormous numbers of shanties that can be met with in Otago, travel where you may — in a crowded city or on the lonely road, the fact stares you boldly in the face that the Government are annually defrauded of hundreds of pounds in this way through the negligence of the police. But the evil does not stop here. Many among the habitual drunkards of the present look back to the past and say with all truthfulness, it was in a shanty I first tasted : I was induced to stay one night at an accommodation house (a house that sells grog without a license). Immediately after tea cards were introduced, and the result was one young man was ruined for life. Had it been an hotel he Avould have had the same opportunity of playing cards, but he would have also had the liberty of going to bed when he wanted, for a license is not usually granted -without having some accommodation for travellers. The police in charge of the district being very good fellows and very well acquainted, could not of course inform against them, as if they did these keepers of shanties might say they were very sharp and did their duty. Lately there have been dens of crime brought to light in Melbourne which can scarcely be credited in a civilized community. The laxity of the public of Otago in matters of the most vital importance to their posterity is becoming a proverb. It may not be credited, but it is nevertheless true, that ( dens of vice and misery also exist in \ enlightened Otago, and that within half a mile of a police barrack in a place not twelve feet square. I lately saw five Europeans, as many more Chinamen, besides several women and young children. If such hot beds of crime are allowed to exists in the very eyes of the police, what must the public think of their servants, for if they fail in one way may they not fail in many? Being a visitor to a small place not long ago, and having a disposition to see into the social and domestic habits of the inhabitants, an idea caflne upon me that I could gratify my desires- by dropping into a " coffee shop." Nor were my ideas far out ; for in a minute I was in the midst of men and women, Chinamen, and little children, with a couple of policemen mixed among the group, all drinking hot coffee — or perhaps whiskey, brandy, or bitter beer, as their several tastes prompted. This is no idle picture, but one that can be seen any evening if you only look in at the right place; this is one of the scenes that can be witnessed by townsfolk. Now for a country house scene.

There is a small township not far from Lawrence with two really good hotels, and, of course, several shanties. In one of these was collected two publicans, several residents in the district, and a constable ; but such was the brazen audacity of this shanty keeper that he; without the slightest compunction, handed out the several drinks called for, and as boldly took the monies, and all this in the face of an officer of the law — beside two who were paying licenses for what he thus openly did both .in defiance of law and justice. Many more facts might be testified to, but sufficient has been said to draw away the veil from the eyes of those most interested. Sufficient for me to say I am not in any way interested in hotels. — I am, &c.

Apollo Hyacinth.

[Our correspondent in his pious crusade against " sly grog selling" is, we suspect, a little prone to obtain his facts from his imagination. We feel pretty certain no place of the kind he describes exists in Lawrence.— Ed. T. T^'""