Cities and towns -- Growth -- Fiction; Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
But it became a not uncommon sight to see a tipsy reveller singing
himself unsteadily home on one side of the street, while the officer,
watching him from the other side, stood questioning his discretion until
the delinquent had passed out of sight. For a time Tommy Kerr, who had
been twice run in, had served as a scapegoat, but that was little
permanent help. It began to be seen that the real problem was, that if
they would get folk with money to spend into the town, they must accept
these folk, within reason, as they were, tipplers and teetotalers alike.
For some reason or other, convivial drinking also seemed to come under
the head of amusements. Blackpool provided liquor; Douglas was in an
exceptional position for the provision of liquor; and more and more it
appeared that Llanyglo must open the Bazaar doors with one hand and the
doors of inns and taverns with the other.
Meanwhile, the "Lancashire Rose," on one side of Gardd Street, and the
"Trafford" on the other, were quickly becoming notorious. These were
both fully licenced houses, with Tap and Saloon entrances, and it was
idle to pretend to think that all the scandal originated in the humbler
compartments. Heady young men with full pockets, respectable fathers of
families, and others whom they could by no means lock up as they could
lock up Tommy Kerr, went into these places in broad daylight, sometimes
coming out again obviously affected: and it was almost certain that not
all their stomachs were so innocent and unaccustomed that a single glass
of the poison had produced this result. Dolefully they wished that a
sober Lancashire would come to Llanyglo; but--a Lancashire of some sort
they _must_ have. Why else were they doing all they could to win its
favour? What else was their Big Wheel for, of which four mammoth
standards of plate and lattice-girder had already risen thirty feet
above the sandhills, where they were stepped and anchored into the
oldest rocks of earth? Why else were they toiling day and night at their
Pier, and at the building, section by section, of the sea-wall? Why else
were they setting up gasometers beyond Pritchard's, and discussing a
Sewage Scheme, and--most urgent of all--gnawing their fingers anxiously
until some arrangement should be come to with Edward Garden's lawyers
about that water far away up Delyn? The supply was becoming terrifyingly
insufficient. For want of mere water the growth of the town might come
to a stop as plants shrivel and fall again in an arid bed.... And, save
to get Lancashire folk there, drunk or sober, why did they solemnly
discuss this inanity of an amusement or that--Big Wheels and
Switchbacks, Scenic Railways, Toboggan Slides, Panoramas, Fat Women,
Dancing Halls, Floral Valleys and Concerts and Town Bands? There was no
going back now. They had spent money that they would never, never see
again if they persisted in being visionaries in business and
irreconcilables on mere minor points of demeanour....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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