Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

_Electrical Resistivity._--The first experiments on the conductivity of metals at low temperatures appear to have been made by Wroblewski (_Comptes rendus_, ci. 160), and by Cailletet and Bouty (_Journ. de phys._ 1885, p. 297). The former's experiments were undertaken to test the suggestion made by Clausius that the resistivity of pure metals is sensibly proportional to the absolute temperature; he worked with copper having a conductibility of 98%, and carried out measurements at various temperatures, the lowest of which was that given by liquid nitrogen boiling under reduced pressure. His general conclusion was that the resistivity decreases much more quickly than the absolute temperature, so as to approach zero at a point not far below the temperature of nitrogen evaporating _in vacuo_. Cailletet and Bouty, using ethylene as the refrigerant, and experimenting at temperatures ranging from 0° C. to -100° C. and -123° C., constructed formulae intended to give the coefficients of variation in electrical resistance for mercury, tin, silver, magnesium, aluminium, copper, iron and platinum. Between 1892 and 1896 Dewar and Fleming carried out a large number of experiments to ascertain the changes of conductivity that occur in metals and alloys cooled in liquid air or oxygen to -200° C. The method employed was to obtain the material under investigation in the form of a fine regular wire and to wind it in a small coil; this was then plunged in the liquid and its resistance determined. The accompanying chart (fig. 14) gives the results in a compendious form, the temperatures being expressed not in degrees of the ordinary air-thermometer scale, but in platinum degrees as given by one particular platinum resistance thermometer which was used throughout the investigation. A table showing the value of these degrees in degrees centigrade according to Dickson will be found in the _Phil. Mag._ for June 1898, p. 527; to give some idea of the relationship, it may be stated here that -100° of the platinum thermometer = -94°.2 C., -150° plat. = -140°.78 C., and -200° plat. = -185°.53 C. In general, the resistance of perfectly pure metals was greatly decreased by cold--so much so that, to judge by the course of the curves on the chart, it appeared probable that at the zero of absolute temperature resistance would vanish altogether and all pure metals become perfect conductors of electricity. This conclusion, however, has been rendered very doubtful by subsequent observations by Dewar, who found that with the still lower temperatures attainable with liquid hydrogen the increases of conductivity became less for each decrease of temperature, until a point was reached where the curves bent sharply round and any further diminution of resistance became very small; that is, the conductivity remained finite. The reduction in resistance of some of the metals at the boiling point of hydrogen is very remarkable. Thus copper has only (1/105)th, gold (1/30)th, platinum (1/35)th to (1/17)th, silver (1/24)th the resistance at melting ice, but iron is only reduced to (1/8)th part of the same initial resistance. Table XIV. shows the progressive decrease of resistance for certain metals and one alloy as the temperature is lowered from that of boiling water down to that of liquid hydrogen boiling under reduced pressure; it also gives the "vanishing temperature," at which the conductivity would become perfect if the resistance continued to decrease in the same ratio with still lower temperatures, the values being derived from the extrapolation curves of the relation between resistance and temperature, according to Callendar and Dickson. It will be seen that many of the substances have actually been cooled to a lower temperature than that at which their resistance ought to vanish.

In the case of alloys and impure metals, cold brings about a much smaller decrease in resistivity, and the continuations of the curves at no time show any sign of passing through the zero point. The influence of the presence of impurities in minute quantities is strikingly shown in the case of bismuth. Various specimens of the metal, prepared with great care by purely chemical methods, gave in the hands of Dewar and Fleming some very anomalous results, appearing to reach at -80° C. a maximum of conductivity, and thereafter to increase in resistivity with decrease of temperature. But when the determinations were carried out on a sample of really pure bismuth prepared electrolytically, a normal curve was obtained corresponding to that given by other pure metals. As to alloys, there is usually some definite mixture of two pure metals which has a maximum resistivity, often greater than that of either of the constituents. It appears too that high, if not the highest, resistivity corresponds to possible chemical compounds of the two metals employed, e.g. platinum 33 parts with silver 66 parts = PtAg4; iron 80 with nickel 20 = Fe4Ni; platinum 80 with iridium 20 = IrPt4; and copper 70 with manganese 30 = Cu2Mn. The product obtained by adding a small quantity of one metal to another has a higher specific resistance than the predominant constituent, but the curve is parallel to, and therefore the same in shape as, that of the latter (cf. the curves for various mixtures of Al and Cu on the chart). The behaviour of carbon and of insulators like gutta-percha, glass, ebonite, &c., is in complete contrast to the metals, for their resistivity steadily increases with cold. The thermo-electric properties of metals at low temperatures are discussed in the article THERMOELECTRICITY.

TABLE XIV.

+-------------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+--------+--------+----------+
| | |Platinum-| | | | |
| Metals. |Platinum.| rhodium | Gold. |Silver. | Copper.| Iron. |
| | | Alloy. | | | | |
+-------------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+--------+--------+----------+
| Resistance at 100° | 39.655 | 36.87 | 16.10 | 8.336 | 11.572 | 4.290 |
| " 0° C | 28.851 | 31.93 | 11.58 | 5.990 | 8.117 | 2.765 |
| " carbonic acid | 19.620 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| " liquid oxygen | 7.662 | 22.17 | 3.380 | 1.669 | 1.589 | 0.633 |
| " " nitrogen | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1.149 | .. |
| " " oxygen | | | | | | |
| under exhaustion| 4.634 | 20.73 | .. | .. | .. | |
| " " hydrogen | 0.826 | 18.96 | 0.381 | 0.244 | 0.077 | 0.356 |
| " " hydrogen | | | | | | |
| under exhaustion| 0.705 | 18.90 | 0.298 | 0.226 | 0.071 | |
| Resistance coefficients | 0.003745| 0.003607|0.003903|0.003917|0.004257| 0.005515 |
| Vanishing temperatures (Centigrade)/| -244.50°| -543.39°|-257.90°|-252.26°|-225.62°|-258.40°C.|
| \| -244.15°| -530.32°|-257.8° |-252.25°|-226.04°|-246.80°D.|
+-------------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+--------+--------+----------+

_Magnetic Phenomena._--Low temperatures have very marked effects upon the magnetic properties of various substances. Oxygen, long known to be slightly magnetic in the gaseous state, is powerfully attracted in the liquid condition by a magnet, and the same is true, though to a less extent, of liquid air, owing to the proportion of liquid oxygen it contains. A magnet of ordinary carbon steel has its magnetic moment temporarily increased by cooling, that is, after it has been brought to a permanent magnetic condition ("aged"). The effect of the first immersion of such a magnet in liquid air is a large diminution in its magnetic moment, which decreases still further when it is allowed to warm up to ordinary temperatures. A second cooling, however, increases the magnetic moment, which is again decreased by warming, and after a few repetitions of this cycle of cooling and heating the steel is brought into a condition such that its magnetic moment at the temperature of liquid air is greater by a constant percentage than it is at the ordinary temperature of the air. The increase of magnetic moment seems then to have reached a limit, because on further cooling to the temperature of liquid hydrogen hardly any further increase is observed. The percentage differs with the composition of the steel and with its physical condition. It is greater, for example, with a specimen tempered very soft than it is with another specimen of the same steel tempered glass hard. Aluminium steels show the same kind of phenomena as carbon ones, and the same may be said of chrome steels in the permanent condition, though the effect of the first cooling with them is a slight increase of magnetic moment. Nickel steels present some curious phenomena. When containing small percentages of nickel (e.g. 0.84 or 3.82), they behave under changes of temperature much like carbon steel. With a sample containing 7.65%, the phenomena after the permanent state had been reached were similar, but the first cooling produced a slight increase in magnetic moment. But steels containing 18.64 and 29% of nickel behaved very differently. The result of the first cooling was a reduction of the magnetic moment, to the extent of nearly 50% in the case of the former. Warming again brought about an increase, and the final condition was that at the temperature of liquid air the magnetic moment was always less than at ordinary temperatures. This anomaly is all the more remarkable in that the behaviour of pure nickel is normal, as also appears to be generally the case with soft and hard iron. Silicon, tungsten and manganese steels are also substantially normal in their behaviour, although there are considerable differences in the magnitudes of the variations they display (_Proc. Roy. Soc._ lx. 57 et seq.; also "The Effect of Liquid Air Temperatures on the Mechanical and other Properties of Iron and its Alloys," by Sir James Dewar and Sir Robert Hadfield, _Id._ lxxiv. 326-336).

Low temperatures also affect the permeability of iron, i.e. the degree of magnetization it is capable of acquiring under the influence of a certain magnetic force. With fine Swedish iron, carefully annealed, the permeability is slightly reduced by cooling to -185° C. Hard iron, however, in the same circumstances suffers a large increase of permeability. Unhardened steel pianoforte wire, again, behaves like soft annealed iron. As to hysteresis, low temperatures appear to produce no appreciable effect in soft iron; for hard iron the observations are undecisive.

_Biological Research._--The effect of cold upon the life of living organisms is a matter of great intrinsic interest as well as of wide theoretical importance. Experiment indicates that moderately high temperatures are much more fatal, at least to the lower forms of life, than are exceedingly low ones. Professor M'Kendrick froze for an hour at a temperature of -182° C. samples of meat, milk, &c., in sealed tubes; when these were opened, after being kept at blood-heat for a few days, their contents were found to be quite putrid. More recently some more elaborate tests were carried out at the Jenner (now Lister) Institute of Preventive Medicine on a series of typical bacteria. These were exposed to the temperature of liquid air for twenty hours, but their vitality was not affected, their functional activities remained unimpaired and the cultures which they yielded were normal in every respect. The same result was obtained when liquid hydrogen was substituted for air. A similar persistence of life has been demonstrated in seeds, even at the lowest temperatures; they were frozen for over 100 hours in liquid air at the instance of Messrs Brown and Escombe, with no other effect than to afflict their protoplasm with a certain inertness, from which it recovered with warmth. Subsequently commercial samples of barley, peas and vegetable-marrow and mustard seeds were literally steeped for six hours in liquid hydrogen at the Royal Institution, yet when they were sown by Sir W. T. Thiselton Dyer at Kew in the ordinary way, the proportion in which germination occurred was no smaller than with other batches of the same seeds which had suffered no abnormal treatment. Mr Harold Swithinbank has found that exposure to liquid air has little or no effect on the vitality of the tubercle bacillus, although by very prolonged exposures its virulence is modified to some extent; but alternate exposures to normal and very cold temperatures do have a decided effect both upon its vitality and its virulence. The suggestion once put forward by Lord Kelvin, that life may in the first instance have been conveyed to this planet on a meteorite, has been objected to on the ground that any living organism would have been killed before reaching the earth by its passage through the intense cold of interstellar space; the above experiments on the resistance to cold offered by seeds and bacteria show that this objection at least is not fatal to Lord Kelvin's idea.

At the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine liquid air has been brought into use as an agent in biological research. An inquiry into the intracellular constituents of the typhoid bacillus, initiated under the direction of Dr Allan Macfadyen, necessitated the separation of the cell-plasma of the organism. The method at first adopted for the disintegration of the bacteria was to mix them with silver-sand and churn the whole up in a closed vessel in which a series of horizontal vanes revolved at a high speed. But certain disadvantages attached to this procedure, and accordingly some means was sought to do away with the sand and triturate the bacilli _per se_. This was found in liquid air, which, as had long before been shown at the Royal Institution, has the power of reducing materials like grass or the leaves of plants to such a state of brittleness that they can easily be powdered in a mortar. By its aid a complete trituration of the typhoid bacilli has been accomplished at the Jenner Institute, and the same process, already applied with success also to yeast cells and animal cells, is being extended in other directions.

_Industrial Applications._--While liquid air and liquid hydrogen are being used in scientific research to an extent which increases every day, their applications to industrial purposes are not so numerous. The temperatures they give used as simple refrigerants are much lower than are generally required industrially, and such cooling as is needed can be obtained quite satisfactorily, and far more cheaply, by refrigerating machinery employing more easily condensable gases. Their use as a source of motive power, again, is impracticable for any ordinary purposes, on the score of inconvenience and expense. Cases may be conceived of in which for special reasons it might prove advantageous to use liquid air, vaporized by heat derived from the surrounding atmosphere, to drive compressed-air engines, but any advantage so gained would certainly not be one of cheapness. No doubt the power of a waterfall running to waste might be temporarily conserved in the shape of liquid air, and thereby turned to useful effect. But the reduction of air to the liquid state is a process which involves the expenditure of a very large amount of energy, and it is not possible even to recover all that expended energy during the transition of the material back to the gaseous state. Hence to suggest that by using liquid air in a motor more power can be developed than was expended in producing the liquid air by which the motor is worked, is to propound a fallacy worse than perpetual motion, since such a process would have an efficiency of more than 100%. Still, in conditions where economy is of no account, liquid air might perhaps, with effectively isolated storage, be utilized as a motive power, e.g. to drive the engines of submarine boats and at the same time provide a supply of oxygen for the crew; even without being used in the engines, liquid air or oxygen might be found a convenient form in which to store the air necessary for respiration in such vessels. But a use to which liquid air machines have already been put to a large extent is for obtaining oxygen from the atmosphere. Although when air is liquefied the oxygen and nitrogen are condensed simultaneously, yet owing to its greater volatility the latter boils off the more quickly of the two, so that the remaining liquid becomes gradually richer and richer in oxygen. The fractional distillation of liquid air is the method now universally adopted for the preparation of oxygen on a commercial scale, while the nitrogen simultaneously obtained is used for the production of cyanamide, by its action on carbide of calcium. An interesting though minor application of liquid oxygen, or liquid air from which most of the nitrogen has evaporated, depends on the fact that if it be mixed with powdered charcoal, or finely divided organic bodies, it can be made by the aid of a detonator to explode with a violence comparable to that of dynamite. This explosive, which might properly be called an emergency one, has the disadvantage that it must be prepared on the spot where it is to be used and must be fired without delay, since the liquid evaporates in a short time and the explosive power is lost; but, on the other hand, if a charge fails to go off it has only to be left a few minutes, when it can be withdrawn without any danger of accidental explosion.

For further information the reader may consult W. L. Hardin, _Rise and
Development of the Liquefaction of Gases_ (New York, 1899), and
Lefèvre, _La Liquéfaction des gaz et ses applications_; also the
article CONDENSATION OF GASES. But the literature of liquid gases is
mostly contained in scientific periodicals and the proceedings of
learned societies. Papers by Wroblewski and Olszewski on the
liquefaction of oxygen and nitrogen may be found in the _Comptes
rendus_, vols, xcvi.-cii., and there are important memoirs by the
former on the relations between the gaseous and liquid states and on
the compressibility of hydrogen in _Wien. Akad. Sitzber._ vols. xciv.
and xcvii.; his pamphlet _Comme l'air a été liquéfié_ (Paris, 1885)
should also be referred to. For Dewar's work, see _Proc. Roy. Inst._
from 1878 onwards, including "Solid Hydrogen" (1900); "Liquid Hydrogen
Calorimetry" (1904); "New Low Temperature Phenomena" (1905); "Liquid
Air and Charcoal at Low Temperatures" (1906); "Studies in High Vacua
and Helium at Low Temperatures" (1907); also "The Nadir of Temperature
and Allied Problems" (Bakerian Lecture), _Proc. Roy. Soc._ (1901), and
the Presidential Address to the British Association (1902). The
researches of Fleming and Dewar on the electrical and magnetic
properties of substances at low temperatures are described in _Proc.
Roy. Soc._ vol. lx., and _Proc. Roy. Inst._ (1896); see also
"Electrical Resistance of Pure Metals, Alloys and Non-Metals at the
Boiling-point of Oxygen," _Phil. Mag._ vol. xxxiv. (1892); "Electrical
Resistance of Metals and Alloys at Temperatures approaching the
Absolute Zero," _ibid._ vol. xxxvi. (1893); "Thermoelectric Powers of
Metals and Alloys between the Temperatures of the Boiling-point of
Water and the Boiling-point of Liquid Air," _ibid._ vol. xl. (1895);
and papers on the dielectric constants of various substances at low
temperatures in _Proc. Roy. Soc._ vols. lxi. and lxii. Optical and
spectroscopic work by Liveing and Dewar on liquid gases is described
in _Phil. Mag._ vols. xxxiv. (1892), xxxvi. (1893), xxxviii. (1894)
and xl. (1895); for papers by the same authors on the separation and
spectroscopic examination of the most volatile and least volatile
constituents of atmospheric air, see _Proc. Roy. Soc._ vols. lxiv.,
lxvii. and lxviii. An account of the influence of very low
temperatures on the germinative power of seeds is given by H. T. Brown
and F. Escombe in _Proc. Roy. Soc._ vol. lxii., and by Sir W.
Thiselton Dyer, _ibid._ vol. lxv., and their effect on bacteria is
discussed by A. Macfadyen, _ibid._ vols. lxvi. and lxxi. (J. Dr.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Figs. 1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 in this article are from _Proc.
Roy. Inst._, by permission.

[2] It may be noted that now that the commercial production of oxygen
is effected by the liquefaction of air, with separation of its
constituents in what is essentially a Coffey still, the chemist has
at his command large quantities not only of the less volatile
constituents, krypton and xenon, but also of the more volatile ones,
neon and helium. Roughly a million volumes of air contain 20 volumes
of neon and helium, about 15 of the former to 5 of the latter,
approximately 1 volume of hydrogen being associated with them, so
that in view of the enormous amounts of oxygen that are produced,
helium can be obtained in practically any quantity directly from the
atmosphere.

LIQUORICE. The hard and semi-vitreous sticks of paste, black in colour and possessed of a sweet somewhat astringent taste, known as liquorice paste or black sugar, are the inspissated juice of the roots of a leguminous plant, _Glycyrrhiza glabra_, the _radix glycyrrhizae_ of the pharmacopoeia. The plant is cultivated throughout the warmer parts of Europe, especially on the Mediterranean shores, and to some extent in Louisiana and California. The roots for use are obtained in lengths of 3 or 4 ft., varying in diameter from 1/4 to 1 in.; they are soft, flexible and fibrous, and internally of a bright yellow colour, with a characteristic, sweet pleasant taste. To this sweet taste of its root the plant owes its generic name _Glycyrrhiza_ ([Greek: glykyrrhiza], the sweet-root), of which the word liquorice is a corruption. The roots contain grape-sugar, starch, resin, asparagine, malic acid and the glucoside glycyrrhizin, C^24H36O9, a yellow amorphous powder with an acid reaction and a distinctive bitter-sweet taste. On hydrolysis, glycyrrhizin yields glucose and glycyrrhetin.

Stick liquorice is made by crushing and grinding the roots to a pulp,
which is boiled in water over an open fire, and the decoction
separated from the solid residue of the root is evaporated till a
sufficient degree of concentration is attained, after which, on
cooling, it is rolled into the form of sticks or other shapes for the
market. The preparation of the juice is a widely extended industry
along the Mediterranean coasts; but the quality best appreciated in
the United Kingdom is made in Calabria, and sold under the names of
Solazzi and Corigliano juice. Liquorice enters into the composition of
many cough lozenges and other demulcent preparations; and in the form
of aromatic syrups and elixirs it has a remarkable effect in masking
the taste of nauseous medicines.

LIQUOR LAWS. In most Western countries the sale of alcoholic liquor is regulated by law. The original and principal object is to check the evils arising from the immoderate use of such liquor, in the interest of public order, morality and health; a secondary object is to raise revenue from the traffic. The form and the stringency of the laws passed for these purposes vary very widely in different countries according to the habits of the people and the state of public opinion. The evils which it is desired to check are much greater in some countries than in others. Generally speaking they are greater in northern countries and cold and damp climates than in southern and more sunny ones. Climate has a marked influence on diet for physiological reasons over which we have no control. The fact is attested by universal experience and is perfectly natural and inevitable, though usually ignored in those international comparisons of economic conditions and popular customs which have become so common. It holds good both of food and drink. The inhabitants of south Europe are much less given to alcoholic excess than those of central Europe, who again are more temperate than those of the north. There is even a difference between localities so near together as the east and west of Scotland. The chairman of the Prison Commissioners pointed out before a British royal commission in the year 1897 the greater prevalence of drunkenness in the western half, and attributed it in part to the dampness of the climate on the western coast. But race also has an influence. The British carry the habit of drinking wherever they go, and their colonial descendants retain it even in hot and dry climates. The Slav peoples and the Magyars in central Europe are much more intemperate than the Teutonic and Latin peoples living under similar climatic conditions. These natural differences lead, in accordance with the principle discerned and enunciated by Montesquieu, to the adoption of different laws, which vary with the local conditions. But social laws of this character also vary with the state of public opinion, not only in different countries but in the same country at different times. The result is that the subject is in a state of incessant flux. There are not only many varieties of liquor laws, but also frequent changes in them, and new experiments are constantly being tried. The general tendency is towards increased stringency, not so much because the evils increase, though that happens in particular places at particular times, as because public opinion moves broadly towards increasing condemnation of excess and increasing reliance on legislative interference. The first is due partly to a general process of refining manners, partly to medical influence and the growing attention paid to health; the second to a universal tendency which seems inherent in democracy.

Liquor laws may be classified in several ways, but the most useful way for the present purpose will be to take the principal methods of conducting the traffic as they exist, under four main headings, and after a brief explanation give some account of the laws in the principal countries which have adopted them. The four methods are: (1) licensing or commercial sale for private profit under a legal permit; (2) sale by authorized bodies not for private profit, commonly known as the Scandinavian or company system; (3) state monopoly; (4) prohibition. It is not a scientific classification, because the company system is a form of licensing and prohibition is no sale at all; but it follows the lines of popular discussion and is more intelligible than one of a more technical character would be. All forms of liquor legislation deal mainly with retail sale, and particularly with the sale for immediate consumption on the spot.

1. _Licensing._--This is by far the oldest and the most widely adopted method; it is the one which first suggests itself in the natural course of things. Men begin by making and selling a thing without let or hindrance to please themselves. Then objections are raised, and when they are strong or general enough the law interferes in the public interest, at first mildly; it says in effect--This must not go on in this way or to this extent; there must be some control, and permission will only be given to duly authorized persons. Such persons are licensed or permitted to carry on the traffic under conditions, and there is obviously room for infinite gradations of strictness in granting permission and infinite variety in the conditions imposed. The procedure may vary from mere notification of the intention to open an establishment up to a rigid and minutely detailed system of annual licensing laid down by the law. But in all cases, even when mere notification is required, the governing authority has the right to refuse permission or to withdraw it for reasons given, and so it retains the power of control. At the same time holders of the permission may be compelled to pay for the privilege and so contribute to the public revenue. The great merit of the licensing system is its perfect elasticity, which permits adjustment to all sorts of conditions and to the varying demands of public opinion. It is in force in the United Kingdom, which first adopted it, in most European countries, in the greater part of North America, including both the United States and Canada, in the other British dominions and elsewhere.

2. _The Scandinavian or Company System._--The principle of this method is the elimination of private profit on the ground that it removes an incentive to the encouragement of excessive drinking. A monopoly of the sale of liquor is entrusted to a body of citizens who have, or are supposed to have, no personal interest in it, and the profits are applied to public purposes. The system, which is also called "disinterested management," is adopted in Sweden and Norway; and the principle has been applied in a modified form in England and Finland by the operation of philanthropic societies which, however, have no monopoly but are on the same legal footing as ordinary traders.

3. _State Monopoly._--As the name implies, this system consists in retaining the liquor trade in the hands of the state, which thus secures all the profit and is at the same time able to exercise complete control. It is adopted in Russia, in certain parts of the United States and, in regard to the wholesale trade, in Switzerland.

4. _Prohibition._--This may be general or local; in the latter case it is called "local option" or "local veto." The sale of liquor is made illegal in the hope of preventing drinking altogether or of diminishing it by making it more difficult. General prohibition has been tried in some American states, and is still in force in a few; it is also applied to native races, under civilized rule, both in Africa and North America. Local prohibition is widely in force in the United States, Canada and Australasia, Sweden and Norway. In certain areas in other countries, including the United Kingdom, the sale of liquor is in a sense prohibited, not by the law, but by the owners of the property who refuse to allow any public-houses. Such cases have nothing to do with the law, but they are mentioned here because reference is often made to them by advocates of legal prohibition.

THE UNITED KINGDOM

England has had a very much longer experience of liquor legislation than any other country, and the story forms an introduction necessary to the intelligent comprehension of liquor legislation in general. England adopted a licensing system in 1551, and has retained it, with innumerable modifications, ever since. The English were notorious for hard drinking for centuries before licensing was adopted, and from time to time sundry efforts had been made to check it, but what eventually compelled the interference of the law was the growth of crime and disorder associated with the public-houses towards the end of the 15th century. Numbers of men who had previously been engaged in the civil wars or on the establishment of feudal houses were thrown on the world and betook themselves to the towns, particularly London, where they frequented the ale-houses, "dicing and drinking," and lived largely on violence and crime. An act was passed in 1495 against vagabonds and unlawful games, whereby justices of the peace were empowered to "put away common ale-selling in towns and places where they should think convenient and to take sureties of keepers of ale-houses in their good behaviour." That was the beginning of statutory control of the trade. The act clearly recognized a connexion between public disorder and public-houses. The latter were ale-houses, for at that time ale was the drink of the people; spirits had not yet come into common use, and wine, the consumption of which on the premises was prohibited in 1552, was only drunk by the wealthier classes.

_Early History of Licensing._--The act of 1551-1552, which introduced licensing, was on the same lines but went further. It confirmed the power of suppressing common ale-selling, and enacted that no one should be allowed to keep a common ale-house or "tippling" house without obtaining the permission of the justices in open session or of two of their number. It further "directed that the justices should take from the persons whom they licensed such bond and surety by recognisance as they should think convenient, and empowered them in quarter session to inquire into and try breaches by licensed persons of the conditions of their recognisances and cases of persons keeping ale-houses without licences and to punish the offenders" (Bonham Carter, Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws, vol. iii.). This act embodied the whole principle of licensing, and the object was clearly stated in the preamble: "For as much as intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth of this realm doth daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses and other places called tippling houses." The evil was not due merely to the use of alcoholic liquor but to the fact that these houses, being public-houses, were the resort of idle and disorderly characters. The distinction should be borne in mind.

The act seems to have been of some effect, for no further legislation was attempted for half a century, though there is abundant evidence of the intemperate habits of all classes. Mr Bonham Carter (loc. cit.) observes:--

"The recognisances referred to in the act were valuable instruments
for controlling the conduct of ale-house keepers. The justices, in
exercise of their discretion, required the recognisances to contain
such conditions for the management and good order of the business as
they thought suitable. In this way a set of regulations came into
existence, many of which were subsequently embodied in acts of
Parliament. In some counties general rules were drawn up, which every
ale-house keeper was bound to observe."

It is interesting to note that among the conditions laid down about this time were the following: Closing at 9 P.M. and during divine service on Sunday; in some cases complete closing on Sunday except to travellers; the licence-holder to notify to the constable all strangers staying for more than a night and not to permit persons to continue drinking or tippling; prohibition of unlawful games, receiving stolen goods and harbouring bad characters; the use of standard measures and prices fixed by law. There was, however, no uniformity of practice in these respects until the 17th century, when an attempt was made to establish stricter and more uniform control by a whole series of acts passed between 1603 and 1627. The evils which it was sought to remedy by these measures were the existence of unlicensed houses, the use of ale-houses for mere drinking and the prevalence of disorder. It was declared that the ancient and proper use of inns and ale-houses was the refreshment and lodging of travellers, and that they were not meant for "entertainment and harbouring of lewd and idle people to spend and consume their money and their time in lewd and drunken manner." Regulations were strengthened for the suppression of unlicensed houses, licences were made annual, and the justices were directed to hold a special licensing meeting once a year (1618). Penalties were imposed on innkeepers for permitting tippling, and also on tipplers and drunkards (1625). In 1634 licensing was first applied to Ireland. Later in the century heavy penalties were imposed for adulteration.

The next chapter in the history of licensing has to do with spirits, and is very instructive. Spirits were not a native product like beer; brandy was introduced from France, gin from the Netherlands and whisky from Ireland; but down to the year 1690 the consumption was small. The home manufacture was strictly limited, and high duties on imported spirits rendered them too dear for the general public unless smuggled. Consequently the people had not acquired the taste for them. But in 1690 distilling was thrown open to any one on the payment of very trifling duties, spirits became extremely cheap and the consumption increased with great rapidity. Regulation of the retail traffic was soon found to be necessary, and by an act passed in 1700-1701, the licensing requirements already existing for ale-house keepers were extended to persons selling distilled liquors for consumption on the premises. A new class of public-houses in the shape of spirit bars grew up. In the year 1732 a complete and detailed survey of all the streets and houses in London was carried out by William Maitland, F.R.S. Out of a total of 95,968 houses he found the following: brew-houses 171, inns 207, taverns 447, ale-houses 5975, brandy-shops 8659; total number of licensed houses for the retail sale of liquor 15,288, of which considerably more than one-half were spirit bars. The population was about three-quarters of a million. About one house in every six was licensed at this time, and that in spite of attempts made to check the traffic by restrictive acts passed in 1728-1729. The physical and moral evils caused by the excessive consumption of spirits were fully recognized; an additional duty of 5s. a gallon was placed on the distiller, and retailers were compelled to take out an excise licence of £20 per annum. The object was to make spirits dearer and therefore less accessible. At the same time, with a view to lessening the number of houses, the licensing procedure of the justices was amended by the provision that licences should only be granted at a general meeting of the justices acting in the division where the applicant resided, thus abolishing the power conferred by the original licensing act, of any two justices to grant a licence. This change, effected in 1729, was a permanent improvement, though it did not prevent the existence of the prodigious numbers of houses recorded by Maitland in 1732. The attempt to make spirits dearer by high excise duties, on the other hand, was adjudged a failure because it led to illicit trade, and the act of 1728 was repealed in 1732. But the evil was so glaring that another and more drastic attempt in the same direction was made in 1736, when the famous Gin Act was passed in response to a petition presented to parliament by the Middlesex magistrates, declaring "that the drinking of geneva and other distilled waters had for some years past greatly increased; that the constant and excessive use thereof had destroyed thousands of His Majesty's subjects; that great numbers of others were by its use rendered unfit for useful labour, debauched in morals and drawn into all manner of vice and wickedness...." The retailing of spirits in quantities of less than 2 gallons was made subject to a licence costing £50 and the retailer had also to pay a duty of 20s. on every gallon sold. This experiment in "high licensing" was a disastrous failure, though energetic attempts were made to enforce it by wholesale prosecutions and by strengthening the regulations against evasion. Public opinion was inflamed against it, and the only results were corruptions of the executive and an enormous increase of consumption through illicit channels. The consumption of spirits in England and Wales nearly doubled between 1733 and 1742, and the state of things was so intolerable that after much controversy the high duties were repealed in 1742 with the object of bringing the trade back into authorized channels; the cost of a licence was reduced from £50 to £1 and the retail duty from 20s. to 1d. a gallon.

This period witnessed the high-water mark of intemperance in England. From various contemporary descriptions it is abundantly clear that the state of things was incomparably worse than anything in modern times, and that women, whose participation in the practice of drinking and frequenting public-houses is recorded by writers in the previous century, were affected as well as men. The experience is particularly instructive because it includes examples of excess and deficiency of opportunities and the ill effects of both on a people naturally inclined to indulgence in drink. It was followed by more judicious action, which showed the adaptability of the licensing system and the advantages of a mean between laxity and severity. Between 1743 and 1753 acts were passed which increased control in a moderate way and proved much more successful than the previous measures. The retail licence duty was moderately raised and the regulations were amended and made stricter. The class of houses eligible for licensing was for the first time taken into account, and the retailing of spirits was only permitted on premises assessed for rates and, in London, of the annual value of £10; justices having an interest in the trade were excluded from licensing functions. Another measure which had an excellent effect made "tippling" debts--that is, small public-houses debts incurred for spirits--irrecoverable at law. The result of these measures was that consumption diminished and the class of houses improved. At the same time (1753) the general licensing provisions were strengthened and extended. The distinction between new licences and the renewal of old ones was for the first time recognized; applicants for new licences in country districts were required to produce a certificate of character from the clergy, overseers and church-wardens or from three or four householders. The annual licensing sessions were made statutory, and the consent of a justice was required for the transfer of a licence from one person to another during the term for which it was granted. Penalties for infringing the law were increased, and the licensing system was extended to Scotland (1755-1756). With regard to wine, it has already been stated that consumption on the premises was forbidden in 1552, and at the same time the retail sale was restricted to towns of some importance and the number of retailers, who had to obtain an appointment from the corporation or the justices, was strictly limited. In 1660 consumption on the premises was permitted under a Crown (excise) licence, good for a variable term of years; in 1756 this was changed to an annual excise licence of fixed amount, and in 1792 wine was brought under the same jurisdiction of the justices as other liquors.

It is clear from the foregoing that a great deal of legislation occurred during the 18th century, and that by successive enactments, particularly about the middle of the century, the licensing system gradually became adjusted to the requirements of the time and took a settled shape. The acts then passed still form the basis of the law. In the early part of the 19th century another period of legislative activity set in. A parliamentary inquiry into illicit trade in spirits took place in 1821, and in 1828 important acts were passed amending and consolidating the laws for England and for Scotland; in 1833 a general Licensing Act was passed for Ireland. These are still the principal acts, though they have undergone innumerable amendments and additions. The English act of 1828 introduced certain important changes. A licence from the justices was no longer required for the sale of liquor for consumption off the premises, and the power of the justices to suppress public-houses at their discretion (apart from the annual licensing), which they had possessed since 1495, was taken away. The removal of this power, which had long been obsolete, was the natural corollary of the development of the licensing system, its greater stringency and efficiency and the increase of duties imposed on the trade. Men on whom these obligations were laid, and who were freshly authorized to carry on the business every year, could not remain liable to summary deprivation of the privileges thus granted and paid for. The justices had absolute discretion to withhold licences from an applicant whether new or old; but an appeal was allowed to quarter sessions against refusal and also against conviction for offences under the act. The main points in the law at this time were the following. The sale of alcoholic liquors for consumption on the premises was forbidden under penalties except to persons authorized according to law by the justices. Licences were granted for one year and had to be renewed annually. The justices held a general meeting each year at a specified time for the purpose of granting licences; those peculiarly interested in the liquor trade were disqualified. The licence contained various provisions for regulating the conduct of the house and maintaining order, but closing was only required during the hours of divine service on Sunday. Applicants for new licences and for the transfer of old ones (granted at a special sessions of the justices) were required to give notice to the local authorities and to post up notices at the parish church and on the house concerned.

_Excise Licences._--It will be convenient at this point to explain the relation between that part of the licensing system which is concerned with the conduct of the traffic and lies in the jurisdiction of the justices and that part which has to do with taxation or revenue. The former is the earlier and more important branch of legislative interference; we have traced its history from 1495 down to 1828. Its object from the beginning was the maintenance of public order and good conduct, which were impaired by the misuse of public-houses; and all the successive enactments were directed to that end. They were attempts to suppress or moderate the evils arising from the traffic by regulating it. The excise licensing system has nothing to do with public order or the conduct of the traffic; its object is simply to obtain revenue, and for a long time the two systems were quite independent. But time and change gradually brought them into contact and eventually they came to form two aspects of one unified system. Licensing for revenue was first introduced in 1660 at the same time as duties on the manufacture of beer and spirits: but it was of an irregular character and was only applied to wine, which was not then under the jurisdiction of the justices at all (see above). In 1710 a small annual tax was imposed on the retailers of beer and ale and collected by means of a stamp on the justices' licence. In 1728 an annual excise licence of £20 was imposed on retailers of spirits, and in 1736 this was raised to £50 (see above). The object of these particular imposts, however, was rather to check the sale, as previously explained, than to secure revenue. In 1756 the previous tax on the retail sale of wine for consumption on the premises was changed to an annual excise licence, which was in the next year extended to "made wines" and "sweets" (British wines). Similar licences, in place of the previous stamps, were temporarily required for beer and ale between 1725 and 1742 and permanently imposed in 1808. Thus the system of annual excise licences became gradually applied to all kinds of liquor. In 1825 the laws relating to them were consolidated and brought into direct relation with the other licensing laws. It was enacted that excise licences for the retail of liquor should only be granted to persons holding a justices' licence or--to use the more correct term--certificate. The actual permission to sell was obtained on payment of the proper dues from the excise authorities, but they had no power to withhold it from persons authorized by the justices. And that was still the system in 1910.

_Licensing since 1828._--There was no change in the form of the British licensing system between the consolidation of the law in 1825-1828 and the time (1910) at which we write; but there were a great many changes in administrative detail and some changes in principle. Only the most important can be mentioned. In 1830 a bold experiment was tried in exempting the sale of beer from the requirement of a justice's licence. Any householder rated to the parish was entitled, under a bond with sureties, to take out an excise licence for the sale of beer for consumption on or off the premises. This measure, which applied to England and was commonly known as the Duke of Wellington's Act, had two objects; one was to encourage the consumption of beer in the hope of weaning the people from spirits; the other was to counteract the practice of "tieing" public-houses to breweries by creating free ones. With regard to the first, it was believed that spirit-drinking was increasing again at the time and was doing a great deal of harm. The reason appears to have been a great rise in the returns of consumption, which followed a lowering of the duty on spirits from 11s. 8¼d. to 7s. a gallon in 1825. The latter step was taken because of the prevalence of illicit distillation. In 1823 the duty had been lowered for the same reason in Scotland from 6s. 2d. and in Ireland from 5s. 7d. to a uniform rate of 2s. 4¾d. a gallon, with so much success in turning the trade from illegal to legal channels that a similar change was thought advisable in England, as stated. The legal or apparent consumption rose at once from 7 to nearly 13 million gallons; but it is doubtful if there was much or any real increase. According to an official statement, more than half the spirits consumed in 1820 were illicit. The facts are of much interest in showing what had already been shown in the 18th century, that the liquor trade will not bear unlimited taxation; the traffic is driven underground. It is highly probable that this accounts for part of the great fall in consumption which followed the raising of the spirit duty from 11s. to 14s. 9d. under Mr Lloyd George's Budget in 1909. With regard to "tied" houses, this is the original form of public-house. When beer was first brewed for sale a "tap" for retail purposes was attached to the brewery, and public-houses may still be found bearing the name "The Brewery Tap." At the beginning of the 19th century complaints were made of the increasing number of houses owned or controlled by breweries and of the dependence of the licence-holders, and in 1817 a Select Committee inquired into the subject. The Beerhouse Act does not appear to have checked the practice or to have diminished the consumption of spirits; but it led to a great increase in the number of beer-houses. It was modified in 1834 and 1840, but not repealed until 1869, when beer-houses were again brought under the justices.

Most of the other very numerous changes in the law were concerned with conditions imposed on licence-holders. The hours of closing are the most important of these. Apart from the ancient regulations of closing during divine service on Sunday, there were no restrictions in 1828; but after that at least a dozen successive acts dealt with the point. The first important measure was applied in London under a Police Act in 1839; it ordered licensed houses to be closed from midnight on Saturday to mid-day on Sunday, and produced a wonderful effect on public order. In 1853 a very important act (Forbes Mackenzie) was passed for Scotland, by which sale on Sunday was wholly forbidden, except to travellers and lodgers, and was restricted on week days to the hours between 8 A.M. and 11 P.M. This act also introduced a distinction between hotels, public-houses and grocers licensed to sell liquor, and forbade the sale to children under 14 years, except as messengers, and to intoxicated persons. In England, after a series of enactments in the direction of progressive restriction, uniform regulations as to the hours of opening and closing for licensed premises were applied in 1874, and are still in force (see below). In 1878 complete Sunday closing, as in Scotland, was applied in Ireland, with the exemption of the five largest towns, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick and Waterford; and in 1881 the same provision was extended to Wales.

Other changes worthy of note are the following. In 1860 the free sale of wine for consumption off the premises was introduced by the Wine and Refreshment Houses Act, which authorized any shopkeeper to take out an excise licence for this purpose; the licences so created were subsequently known as grocers' licences. By the same act refreshment houses were placed under certain restrictions, but were permitted to sell wine for consumption on the premises under an excise licence. In 1861 spirit dealers were similarly authorized to sell spirits by the bottle. The effect of these measures was to exempt a good deal of the wine and spirit trade from the control of the justices, and the idea was to wean people from public-house drinking by encouraging them to take what they wanted at home and in eating-houses.