Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Barmaid on trial for serving drunks
A barmaid and a publican are on trial for serving two drunk men at the Royal Hotel, this week 110 years ago, as we take a flick through the archives. From the Marlborough Express, December 3, 1913.
The hearing of the cases in which Albert Roland Durrant, licensee of the Royal Hotel, and Ethel Jamieson, barmaid, were charged respectively with having sold and supplied liquor to John Kershaw and another while the two men were in a state of intoxication, was continued by Mr F. O’B. Loughnan, S.M., yesterday afternoon ...
Ethel Jamieson, barmaid, one of the defendants, said that the three men were sober when they came in on October 30th. Mrs Durrant put Kershaw out because he was making a noise and talking rather loudly. He did this because the witness would not give him gin in his beer. She told him that she would not give him two drinks for sixpence.
Cross-examined: She did not know that beer with gin was a common drink. She had been a barmaid for three years, but had never heard “dog’s nose” called for.
His Worship said that the evidence was curious. First of all, the young man who was cleaning the window said that
Kershaw and those with him were drunk. Then Mr Martin, who saw them at the same place and saw them go over the bridge to the Royal Hotel, was satisfied that they were drunk.
As against this evidence, the two young men, Strickland and Simmons, who saw them drinking at the bar, considered that they were sober. Almost immediately afterwards it was necessary to turn Kershaw out because he raised his voice and began singing.
The barmaid admitted that she was so busy that she could not say who ordered the drinks. The two young men at the bar had no special inducement to examine carefully the condition of Kershaw and his companions.
It was different with the man who was standing on a ladder and cleaning the window.
He had to look to his own safety, and was interested in seeing that the men did not bump up against the ladder.
Then there was the demeanor (sic) of the men when they went into the hotel. They were served with comparatively harmless drinks – medium beers – but Kershaw at once exhibited symptoms which made it undesirable for the landlady to have him on the premises.
Having examined the evidence on every side, said Worship, he thought that Kershaw and his companion were drunk when they went into the hotel. It was the business of people who came to the bar, and of the barmaid to scrutinise them. It was through her negligence that they were served.
In her case he would inflict a fine of £2 with £1 3s costs. He would not convict the landlord.