The Westport Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 522, 26 June 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1869.

In resuming the subject of the Licensing System, and the alleged local or social abuses existing under that system, it will be well for us to state as plainly as possible what, in our last number, we put with some delicacy and indistinctness. There may be people who would wilfully mis-re-present the intentions of a public journalist, and misconstrue his words. We shall avert this contingency by stating at onco that, before we gave free scope to a correspondence of a highly moral tone, we wanted to know how far it was real and sincere. We wanted to know how far it arose from the feelings of one class of licensed publicans against another. To come at once to the anti-climax, we wanted to know what connection this correspondence had with recent local changes in " the ginger-bcer trade." We think we have discovered the extent of that connection, and, being satisfied that there is, perhaps, some amount of sincerity and honesty in the letters received, wo give attention, as promised, to the subject. To be brief, the allegations of our correspondents, or one of them, in bis iancy way of putting it, is that a certain class of locally licensed publiehouses are " the disgrace and ruin of this town ;" that " vice, drunkenness, aud debauchery are hypocritically held forth under the guise of social enjoyment j" that they are " calculated to develope the most hideous forms of human depravity ;" that, notwithstanding, " men of education and respectability often countenance them;" and, moreover, that " the manner in which the authorities foster their proceedings is irreeoncileable with the high private character which they bear." And the writer concludes:

" 1 hope the iniquity has not yet outgrown the law, and that the authorities will interpose to protect society from a plague which is threatening destruction to the cause of morality and religion." It is upon this " plague " which we have been ashed to give violently expressed opinions, and upon which we have elected ourselves to give, first, one small opinion of our own. Lacking the experience of our correspondent, as to very intimate acquaintance with the interior of such houses as are referred to, we are not in a position to say exactly how far his moral reflections upon them may be justified or not. We sincerely hope that he is not justified in making the sweeping assertions which he does, and if he is justified we as sincerely hope that the moral sense of the public and the proprietors themselves will tend towards an improvement in the state of affairs, and to the satisfaction of our correspondent's soul. What w« want to point out to our

correspondent, and to the public who may, for all we know, very properly sympathise with him, is that, in calling upon the authorities to interpose to protect society in the cause of morality and religion, he is calling upon them to do what they have no right to do whatever, except to the simple extent of carrying out the licensing system in its integrity, and as it stands upon the statute book. His Honor Judge Eichmond is not the first authority who has uttered the axiom, as h§ lately did, that the duty of the law is to deal with crime. It has nothing whatever to do with the correction of sin ; and if any class of houses, or class of habits, tend to foster "iniquity," as our correspondent himself calls it, it is for the moralist or the religious to deal with it, and none other. To this extent, however, the law, even as it stands, and without being stretched, can be carried out: there need not be given to any class of houses, more than to another, unless there are special and good reasons for it, greater facilities than the law allows. And it is some alleged neglect in that particular which, we honestly believe, forms one of the sores the pain of which has partially led to this correspondence. One correspondent, in fact, says that "dancing saloons are allowed to be kept open all night every alternate week," and that is, perhaps with reason, among the chief of his complaints, for, apart from the consideration of night being made hideous with revelry of a rough order, it is the fact that special licenses for open house all night cannot be granted more than six times a year. If more license than this has been granted, it would seem to be an evasion of the law, but that it is so we cannot say. If, in any other particular, any class of houses whatever have liberties which the Act does not grant, let them be abridged, but do not let our correspondent talk such nonsense and poetry as " the law " interposing to protect society from " a plague." If the law could or would do so, he may depend upon it that, at least in the metropolis of the world, it would have been done ; and that Cremorne, the Argyll Rooms, the Casino de Venise, or even the Coalhole itself would long ago have disappeared from its institutions. One specific complaint of our correspondent " Pater-familias " is that, occasionally, " half-naked women arc allowed to dance at these houses with impunity." "We take it for granted that he alludes to the imaginary Cupids, Galateas, Dianas, Venuses, and Virgins (?) "Wise and Foolish, who are to be seen flitting about the floors of casinoes on occasions of a fancy ball. Unfortunately, here again the law is at fault. It has not yet condescended to limit the length of a lady's petticoats, or to determine the dimensions of her bodice. It is true that the Lord Chancellor has given a warning to the proprietors of the London theatres that they must not " undress " their ladies so extensively ; but the whole matter is a very vexed question, and is a matter more of morals than of law. "Leg" is a potent element even in exhibitions on the stage, and it is very hard to restrain either exhibitors or spectators in their penchant to trench upon propriety, and upon the length of skirts. It must be confessed that there is a difference between the ballet and the ball-room. Cupid, or whatever she may be in " provokiugly short petticoats," at the end of her performance on the stage retires to the privacy or the " gentlemanly society " of the sidewing, and probably solaces herself with a half-pint and a ham sandwich ; she does not go into the pit, as in the casino, to sit on every " Mr Guppy's" knee, or to become the jest or the jade of a group of half-drunken diggers. As to "men of education and respectability countenancing such scenes," that is also all a matter of moral taste, and we shall not go so far as our correspondent as to condemn it. Perhaps, if all were "men of education and respectability" who went to the casinoes, the evils of which our correspondents complain would at once cease. At least, for the sake of " education and respectability " w r e should hope so. For the present, we are at a loss to define which is the most reprehensible proceeding on the part of " men of education and respectability " —to drivel for hours into a state of idiotcy over a cribbage-board and brandy-and-water, or to sit on the " knife-board" of a dancing-room, irritated by the yelk of a Master of Ceremonies, and gazing on some scraggy representative of Shakespeare's seventh age, or on some moving mass of adipose tissue in the >

guise of woman. There is only one thing to be said for the cribbageboard—it does not bring " men of education and respectability " in contact with the element of prostitution, and that cannot always be said for the dance-house, for, however pure the interior management may be, that element claims the privilege of being admitted into a public room, and unfortunately is occasionally, if not freq ueD tly#present. "We have referred to this subject at extravagant length, and have not the slightest doubt that by the two articles we have written on it, we have succeeded in thoroughly displeasing both those whom our correspondents partially represent, and those at whom their letters were aimed. "We, unfortunately, choose to write, not at the dictation of one set of traders or another, but at the dictation, we hope—to make a " large " quotation on a probably small subject —of "a mind conscious to itself of right."