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This report is from the Sydney Morning Herald of the 21st April 1851:
“WOLLONGONG.
“APRIL 17. - ANNUAL LICENSING MEETING. - The annual licensing meeting, for taking into consideration applications for publicans’ general licenses and confectioner’s licenses, was held, pursuant to law, at the police-office, on Tuesday, the 15th instant. Magistrates in attendance; Alick Osborne, Robert Martin Cole, Charles Throsby Smith, William Devenish, Messrs. James Shoobert, William Sheaffe, Gerard Gerad, David Williamson Irving, and Robert Menzies, Esqs. There were eight applications for general licenses for the town of Wollongong, one for Charcoal, one for Eastern Dapto, one for Western Dapto, one for Jamberoo, two for Kiama, and one for Shoalhaven; all of which were granted, as were also three applications for confectioner’s licenses in the town of Wollongong. We shudder to contemplate the awful results to be anticipated; the gross immorality, debauchery, and crime of every description from this increased number of public-houses, fifteen of them in a population of of from six to seven thousand souls, that is, a proportion of one licensed house to every five hundred men, women, and children in the district. The philanthropist asks, what is to be done in this fearful state of things ? The magistrates say that their hands are tied up by the Licensing Act, they have no power of refusal, without objections are made and supported by other parties to any or either of the applicants; and even though they had the power, according to the doctrine propounded on this and a former occasion by the chairman of the bench, Dr. A. Osborne, free trade principle must obtain, in licensing public-houses, as well as in every other department of trade and commerce. We are satisfied that the Legislature, or indeed the general body of the public, never contemplated deductions such as these from the passing of that Bill. We question the wisdom of the interpretation; and saying that, pretty generally throughout the colony the magistrates are imbued with similar opinions, the only remedy is by legislative enactment, as formerly suggested by us, in apportioning the number of licensed houses to something like a reasonable ratio of the population in the several towns and districts of the colony.”
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