And your petitioners humbly pray ...

Beer Bill (1860)

Transcription

To the Honourable The Legislative Assembly of the Colony of Victoria in Parliament assembled

The Petition of the Undersigned Quartz Mill owners, Miners, storekeepers, professional Men, Merchants and Agriculturists of the County of Evelyn in Public Meeting assembled.

Humbly Sheweth,

That your Petitioners, who are for the most part inhabitants of the Caledonia gold field, have viewed with great satisfaction a bill which has been introduced into your Honorable House for legalizing the sale of colonial manufactured beer in restaurants, and other establishments, not being public houses, at a small license fee.

That your Petitioners are for the most part engaged in mining operations
and other pursuits involving severe and continuous labor, which during the hot weather naturally produces great waste of body and much thirst.

That the public houses even if they were desirable places of resort (as the Moral and religious portion of the community well know they are not) are few and many miles distant from the populous localities.

That throughout the Caledonia gold field, embracing a very extensive area, and containing a large population, the water is every-where most unwholesome and is often quite unfit for use.

That your Petitioners submit most respectfully but most confidently
to your Honble. House, in the interests of temperance, which they desire to promote, that the increase in the consumption of a cheap and wholesome beverage. such as colonial beer. will have a directly beneficial effect by diminishing, if not of superseding the drinking of spirits, of a deleterious quality, now so general.

That legalizing the sale of colonial beer, will very much tend to the suppression of those sources of crime and immorality known as “sly grog shops” which as is well known are but too numerous.

Wherefore your Petitioners most humbly request your Honorable House to pass the said bill for the legalizing the sale of colonial beer as aforesaid_.

And Your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever Pray.

W. H Gatty Jones
July 6. 1860

Ordered to lie on the Table
6th July 1860
John Barton
Clerk of Assembly

July 10th. 1860
Ordered to be Presented
Clerk Assy

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