who had been successfully prosecuted for unlicensed vending four times in two years was permitted to take a license in the third year.[1] It was obviously important that drinking should not be encouraged by a multiplication of facilities, and that the public houses should be decent and orderly. The issue of licenses gave the Government considerable power in regulating the number and conduct of these houses and it also brought in a considerable revenue.[2] It is difficult to say what was understood by an "orderly house". Governor King forbade gambling and drunkenness, probably with very little effect. Macquarie laid stress on the house being "commodious" and fit for the reception of travellers, and warned the publican not to allow "low and profligate characters" to make it a resort or the centre of disturbance. Nine o'clock was the closing hour for them all, but on "The Rocks," at least, the police made few efforts to enforce this rule. To distinguish licensed from unlicensed houses the former were ordered to hang signboards before their doors and a list of these was published in the Gazette.[3] The tavern company was often riotous and the inn parlour the place of brawls.[4] The duty of the Government was to lessen these evils by selecting suitable "housekeepers," and by keeping them strictly to the conditions under which the licenses were granted. By no means could it have been easy to find amongst the population of Sydney, licensees of undoubted propriety. But Macquarie's system had obvious faults. He reversed the former custom by which the Governor granted licenses on the advice of the magistrates, thus leaving the real power to them; putting in its place one by which the magistrates granted the licenses by direction of the Governor.[5] "… I have always understood," wrote Bent in 1815, "that licenses to vend spirituous liquors has
- ↑ Evidence in Appendix to Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS.
- ↑ The revenue was from £1,400 to £2,000 annually. Macquarie laid great stress on its importance. Thus in G.G.O., 7th August, 1813, in speaking of unlicensed retailing, he said, "Magistrates and other peace officers are called on to exert themselves in detecting and punishing all such frauds on the revenue".
- ↑ The police often allowed dances to take place in the licensed houses, during which there were scenes of great disorder.
- ↑ See G.G.O.'s 1810 to 1817, passim. The public houses were probably not so bad as those in England, and especially those in London.
- ↑ Bigge says Macquarie continued the old custom. See Report, II. This, however, is a mistake. See G.G.O. of King in 1800 and the notices in Sydney Gazette, which show that the system of 1800 continued until 1810. See also, Bent's letter quoted below.
