The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-27 00:00:00

MORE PROTECTION SOCIETY _HUMBUG.

The daily organ of the Licensed Victuallers' Protec-
tion Society having at last broken its silence in reference
to the existing dissensions among the publicans, we na-
turally looked for some defence of the past conduct of
the committee of that body in promoting the passing of
the Tiew Sunday Beer Bill. No such thing, however, is
attempted ; but the present aim of the Morning Adver-
tiser appears to be, to divert attention from the injuries
which the Protection Society Committee have inflicted
upon the members of their own trade, and upon the pub-
lic, by falsely representing that there exists some ma-
tured Parliamentary scheme to be brought forward next
Session for throwing open the trade to all who may choose
to embark in it. Thus the Morning Advertiser says—
" From a variety of communications which have reached
us we are gratified to learn that the country will go
hand-in-hand with the licensed vicutallers in resisting
any attempt which may be made next Session to do
away with the licensing system, and to throw the trade
open to all persons who choose to embark in it. Such a
measure, if carried, would not only be fraught with ruin
to the great majority of those now engaged in the trade,
but it would be attended with moral and social con-
sequences which all would have to deplore. This isno mere
opinion. It is a statement based on the existence of recog-
nised facts. It is proved from the existence of the past, and
°lir observations of the present. A free trade in spiri-
tuous and other liquors has existed for some time in
•
Scotlend And what has been the result ? Why, that
in large towns, Glasgow especially, there are some
streets in which every third or fourth shop or cellar is
appropriated to the sale of intoxicating drinks. It is
unnecessary to say that the very fact of the existence of
these innumerable receptacles for persons addicted to
habits of inebriety implies another fact, namely—that
they aro more or less largely patronised. The latter
fact necessarily involves the prevalence of intem-
perance. To throw open the trade, therefore, would
be an act synonymous with offering a premium for
inebriety. Were the trade thrown open we should im-
mediately have a perfect swarm of public-houses in the
metropolis, and in all parts of the country ; and, in order
to obtain customers, every expedient would be resorted
to which human ingenuity could suggest." Now, upon
reading this alarming statement, we can imagine the
kind of profuse cold sweat which must have come over
many a comfortable and well-to-do publican at this
threatened wholesale destruction of his tradeand property,
and the dismal dreams of poverty and the workhouse
which must afterwards have disturbed his night's repose.
We can fancy that this alarming article must have cost
a considerable consumption of brandy-and-water by
Boniface himself, and mixed rather stiffishly, to comfort
his nerves under the prospect of complete ruin which is
here announced. We can, however, assure our nume-
rous friends, the publicans, that not the slightest ground
exists for any apprehension as to their trade being
thrown open by Parliament ; no such scheme, plan,
or proposition is before the public, or has been
recommended to Parliament. The statement of the
Morning Advertiser is a perversion of the truth, only
put out to cover the disgrace of the Protection
Society Committee. Before proceeding, however,
to say what has been proposed to Parliament, we
must really plainly state that if the writer in the Morning
Advertiser had seen the report from the Parliamentary
committee on public-houses, he must have known that
his statement was without foundation ; and if he had not
read that report, then he was incompetent to write upon
the subject to which his article refers. Let us, then,
explain as plainly, and in as few words as possible, the
scheme recommended by the Parliamentary comn3itteefor
amending the present system of licensing public-houses.
This scheme is contained in certain regulations adopted
by the committee to which we refer, but as our purpose
is to be intelligible, we avoid the order and language of the
propositions, so that we may give the pith and purport
of them. In the first place, then, it is proposed that
the licenses of all existing public-houses and beer-shops
should continue to be obtained exactly as they are at
present, and at the existing rates of payment. With re-
spect to the licensing of new public-houses, it is proposed
to make the granting of licenses compulsory on the magis-
trates, on compliance with certain conditions. In the first
place every applicant for a new license must be a person
of good character, and must himself give bond, and find two
sureties to be bound with him for the due observance of the
law, and the conditions upon which the license shall be
granted. Secondly, the distinction existing between
beer-shop and publicans' licenses in all new houses is to
be abolished, and one uniform license only to be granted.
No intoxicating drinks are to be sold without a license.
The annual payment to be made for all new licenses is
to be according to the following scale :—ln rural parishes
and small towns, the lowest amount to be paid for a
license is 61. ; in towns or parishes above 5,000 and
under 10,000 it is to be 81. ; and to be increased 21.
for every 5,000 inhabitants, but in no case to exceed
301. Now the practical operation of this increased
charge for licenses will be this.—That in the metropolis,
and in large towns such as Machester, Liverpool,
Bristol, Birmingham, &c., no new house can be
opened for the sale even of beer without an expense of
301. annually. Beyond that, also, sureties are to be
given for good behaviour. Let us now ask the Morn-
ing Advertiser and the Protection Society, whether this
is such an alarming scheme for throwing their trade open
as to justify the wild warnings and mis-statements con-
tained in the article Ncith which we have commenced
this notice. On the contrary, are we not justified, on
behalf of the public, in denouncing this scheme as one
exactly adapted to increase the power of the great
brewers, and to establish a giant monopoly such as exists
in no other branch of trade.—Dispatelie

A TRAVELLER'S ILTIP.RESSIO.N6 OF
SEBASTOPOL.

_
M. Kohl, who visited the Crimea about ten years ago,
and whose "Travels in Russia" and other works are
fhvourahly known to English readers, thus describes
the fortifications and harbour of Sebastopol at that
period :

"No traces of the past are to be found about Sebas-
topol ; everything is smart, fresh, and bran new. The
view of the city from a distance is very fine—its hand-
some buildings and churches rising as if directly out of
the sea, whose waves, after roaring and dashing with-
out, find shelter within the walls and in spacious
basins. These tranquil and secure harbours reflect the
busy movements of 40,000 or 50,000 people in perpetual
motion on land and water. It is absurd to find in our
(the German) statistical tables Sebastopol rated as pos-
sessing only 5,000 inhabitants, whilst there are never
less than 10,000 ; and there have now been for some
time no less than 30,000 troops encamped round the
city to work at the-fortifications, without counting the
crews of the numerous ships of war constantly sta-
tioned here. The effect of all this warlike animation and
bustle was greatly heightened to us by the contrast with
the silence of the Tartar villages, ernbosorned in
fruit trees, through which we had passed in approach-
ing it, while the immediate environs of the town are
entirely destitute of trees, and as bald as the pate of a
Mussulman. A few days before our arrival the Russian
fleet had returned from the Caucasus, and it exhibited
many traces of the contests in which it had been en-
gaged with the tempests and the Circassians. The
greater part of the best of the fortifications of Sebas-
topol date only from the reign of the present Emperor.
The materials have been furnished by the soft limestone
found in the neighbourhood, which a good deal resembles
the shell limestone used in the building of Odessa. It is
of so yielding a texture that balls would remain sticking
in it as in sand. It would, however, be so much the
more vulnerable to the attacks of time, as may
be judged from the houses of Odessa, which are already
falling to decay. For the present of course everything
in Sebastopol is straight and in order, and it would afford
a secure place of refuge for the Russian ships should
they ever be driven by English gunpowder from the
Dardanelles. One of the officers of the fleet had the kind-
ness to take me in his handsome yawl to see what was,
perhaps, one of the most remarkable things in Sebasto-
pol, the marvellous docks now building for the navy.
Nature has indeed freely contributed to this giant work,
by preparing a long, straight, deep bay, protected on
all sides. Nevertheless there yet remained enough to
be done. The stone chiefly used in the construction of
these docks is a beautiful, almost snow-white, limestone,
in immense blocks, than which nothing can look better
as long as they are new. Here and there a few blocks
of granite may be seen."