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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

Sober and Moral

Sober and Moral.

It will be said, perhaps, that I am overlooking the condition in subsection 6: That he is of good moral character, and is leading a sober and reputable life." As the Bill allows unlimited license to all crime till past the prime of life, and to petty crime afterwards, and as it avoids making any number of convictions for drunkenness a bar, I contend that unless an applicant had been proved in a court of law or in some official or public fashion to be guilty of drunkenness or an offence involving immorality within, say, the last year or two at the outside, the magistrate who had the determination of the matter would be bound to pass him. And what our magistrates will do when there is no obligation in the matter we may learn from their practice under an analogous procedure. An applicant for a publican's license has to obtain a certificate from a magistrate vouching him to be "a person of good fame and reputation, and fit and proper to have a publican's license granted to him." The page 7 following persons have lately received certificates of "good fame and reputation" under this provision:—(1) An ex-constable who had been recently dismissed from the force for immorality; (2) the unsuccessful co-respondent in a divorce suit where the verdict amounted to a finding of perjury against him; (3) an habitual drunkard who had actually a prohibition order in force against him at the time of his application. If an habitual drunk and is of "good fame and reputation,' and a man to whom a Court has forbidden the sale of liquor is fit. To have a license which involves the constant buying, selling, and handling of it, then a man in delirium tremens is "leading a sober and reputable life," and entitled to be so certified under the Pension Bill. The certificate is waste paper in each case.