Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 173, 9 July 1901, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

The ever green question of controlling the sale of

liquor intoxicating llqupr legislation, will soon be to the

fore, preparatory to a determined struggle between the opposing parties in the community. The Wairarapa Star hears on -excellent authority that an amendment to the Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act is to bo introduced this session. The measure provides for taking ■ a poll on the date of the, next general election on the question of provincial option. The boundaries of

the provincial districts are to be the same as the old provincial boundaries, and there will be nine districts in all. The three-fifths majority is retained so far as the carrying of prohibition is concerned. The Bill provides for a referendum at the first poll to determine if subsequent polls shall be taken every three or six years. A bare majority is to decide this question. As for the Clutha district, this is not to be affected by the provincial option poll unless a three-fifths majority in the licensing district decide in favour of licenses. Licenses are not to be granted in the King. Country until after the report of the Royal Commission which is to enquire into the question. Provision is made whereby licenses may be granted by the Colonial Secretary in tourist districts other than the King Country. A number of important misceb laneous amendments- are also proposed to the Act. The hour for closing hotels is fixed for 10.80 p.m. Magistrates are to be given discretion in the matter of endorsing licenses in case of a conviction. Clubs are to be brought under the Act so far as the sale of liquor and inspection are Concerned. It is further proposed in the Bill that club charters shall be issued by the licensing committees instead of by the Colonial Secretary.

Now that our legislators are “at wo»b” again, scraps Windsor of their con versauniforms, tions show that a subject of discussion—dress—which was supposed to be the property of the ladies, has reached our legislators, and is drawing them from the straight and narrow path. A correspondent of the Press says:—“ A good fighting speech was delivered in the House to-night by Sir Joseph Ward, who vigorously defended the policy pursued by the Bailway Department. He eschewed the personal element till the last five minutes, when he replied to the comments that had been made about his Windsor uniform. He thought his honourable friend, Captain Russell, had rather gone out of his way to insult a uniform which, from bis own military instincts, he should have been above insulting. No man going to the Old Country occupying. a responsible position but received invitations to many important functions, and if they were not accepted it would be a reflection on his own country. A man could only go to such functions in the uniform that was in question. A member of the Atkinson Government, namely, Sir Frederick vhitakpr, had worn the uniform, and no comment was made.

Mr Atkinson : Didn’t you take yours on to the Brooklyn ? Sir Joseph ; No, I did not. Mr Massey : I think the Premier took his to the Islands. Sir Joseph said he did not think the fact of putting on a uniform changed a man’s character or nature. (Hear, hear.) If it created a feeling of envy in his honourable friend, he was very sorry that he ■had not qualified to wear it. Captain Russell: I have qualified. I could wear it tb-morrow.

Sir Joseph qui.ckly retorted-: ‘ Then the hon. member is afraid to show his legs in it.’ Personally, he had never decried or talked against men accepting titular distinction. If a man occupying an important position had earned a distinction and refused that distinction when asked to accept it, that would be snobbishness. If they thought it was going to make any change in his nature or disposition, or that they were going to brush him aside politically because of that reason, then they were making a great mistake, both as regarded public or private opinion.*’ No wonder that our rulers are going to increase their honorariums (or honoraria) by £6O. The great strain such- intellectual discourse must be to the brain is frightful to contemplate. It has broken down Mr Lewis, it is breaking down others. By all means' raise the screws, so that if a member has to fall out we will know the country has everything to reproach itself with—it bought his body for £2JO, and completed the purchase by giving him £6O for his soul.

Since the days of advertising', that

great exponent of the cube-alls, virtues of “Sbake-

em-ups Little Liver Pills,” “ Brown’s Boiled Bones for Biliousness,” and such-like mysteries, tbe patent medicine has flourished. What it is made of no one asks, whether it will do tbe work alleged for it no one knows, sufficient is the fact that it is in a bottle with a printed label and directions, and that it has been advertised (with scores of testimonials on application) to cure anything from foot rot to wooden legs in men. Ldwn it goes. One of the witnesses in the Berger case of alleged attempted wifepoisonmg, in the Auckland Magistrate’fr Court, was one John Wormall, who described hi-jself as “ a hygienic physician and hydropathic practitioner,” not legally qualified. Wormall had supplied the accused man with a preparation described as ‘‘No. 1 specific,” which: he was aware contained aconite, the poison from which Mrs Berger is supposed to have suffered. Mr Hutchison, B.M. t What disease is- the preparation supposed to cur© ? Witness, in reply,, said the medicine would remove all organic diseases. His Worship.; What,nonsense I I suppose this is the | Elixir of Life. The witness, continuing, ’said that if the acousedhad only administered the medicine in question properly

to Mr Berger, he (witness) thought it Would have done the lady Mr Tole; What does this S*" cure ? His Worship (looking up from an examination of a book produced) I You will be surprised to hear, ,Mr JTole, that it Cured amongst other things dropsy, consumption, and insanity. (Laughter.) Witness : It will cure any disease in an acute stage, and it would be well if the world adopted it instead of some of the rubbish it has now. His Worship It seems to me that the Only disease it does- not cure is the plague. In further examination the witness declared that according to the book animal food was reckoned as a sort of poison. The medicine (not specific) would drive the disease to the hands and feet, and each organ affected drove its disease to a par* ticular finger. Each of these extra--ordinary statements provoked a peal of laughter.—No wonder.