Chapter XI: Hanoverian Period (4)

The ultimate or prospective remedies which have been strongly urged by several witnesses, and which _they_ think, when public opinion shall be sufficiently awakened to the great national importance of the subject, may be safely recommended, include the following:--

(_a_) The absolute prohibition of the importation from any foreign
country, or from our colonies, of distilled spirits in any shape.

(_b_) The equally absolute prohibition of all distillation of
ardent spirits from grain.

(_c_) The restriction of distillation from other materials, to the
purposes of the arts, manufactures, and medicine, and the confining
the wholesale and retail dealing in such articles to chemists,
druggists, and dispensaries alone.

Finally they conclude:--

As your Committee are fully aware that one of the most important
elements in successful legislation is the obtaining the full
sanction and support of public opinion in favour of the laws--and
as this is most powerful and most enduring when based on careful
investigation and accurate knowledge as the result, they venture
still further to recommend the most extensive circulation during
the recess, under the direct sanction of the Legislature, of an
abstract of the evidence obtained by this inquiry, in a cheap and
portable volume, as was done with the Poor Law Report, to which it
would form the best auxiliary; the national cost of intoxication
and its consequences being tenfold greater in amount than that of
the poor-rates, and pauperism itself being indeed chiefly caused
by habits of intemperance, of which it is but one out of many
melancholy and fatal results.

By 4th and 5th William IV., the preamble whereof recites _that much evil had arisen from the management of houses in which_ beer _and_ cider _are sold_, it was enacted that each beer-seller is to obtain his annual excise licence _only on condition_ of placing in the hands of the excise, _a certificate of good character signed by six rated inhabitants of his parish_ (none of whom must be brewers or maltsters), if in a town of 5,000 inhabitants; but the house to be one rated at 10_l._ a year. This Act also distinguishes between persons who sell liquor _to be drunk on the premises_, and those who sell it only to be drunk elsewhere. By a Treasury order, beer sold at, or under, 1½_d._ per quart, may be retailed without licence.

It is well known that Lord Brougham was a warm advocate of the Beer Act in the first instance. He entirely changed his opinion. In 1839, he said in the Upper House:--

To what good was it that the Legislature should pass laws to punish
crime, or that their lordships should occupy themselves in finding
out modes of improving the morals of the people by giving them
education? What could be the use of sowing a little seed here, and
plucking up a weed there, if these beer-shops were to be continued
that they might go on to sow the seeds of immorality broadcast over
the land, germinating the most frightful produce that had ever been
allowed to grow up in a civilised country, and, he was ashamed
to add, under the fostering care of Parliament, and throwing its
baleful influences over the whole community?

Queen Victoria had scarcely ascended the throne before she was reminded that the evils of the drink traffic were upmost in the minds of many of her Majesty’s subjects. At a Conference held at Carnarvon, August 2, 1837, a congratulatory address to the Sovereign upon her accession was drawn up. It stated:--

To this declaration not less than one hundred thousand of your
Majesty’s loyal subjects have already subscribed their names,
some thousands of whom had previously been drunkards. And could
we convey to your royal mind the incalculable benefits resulting
from the simple means of total abstinence from intoxicating liquor,
we would with humble confidence earnestly entreat your Majesty to
condescend to patronise our endeavour to wipe away from Britain the
plague-spot of drunkenness.

In the treatment of this period, we have to confront an apparent anomaly, viz. the largest drink bills on record, and the most strenuous efforts to get rid of drink altogether. That the Statute Book bristles with legislative interference, is sufficiently accounted for by these two circumstances. In no period has legislation been to the same extent an index of the precise situation. Let us at once address ourselves to its salient features.

By the 2nd and 3rd Victoria, called the _Metropolitan Police Act_, operating within a circle of fifteen miles from Charing Cross, all public-houses are to be shut on Sundays until one o’clock P.M., _except for travellers_: and publicans are _prohibited_, under penalties of 20_l._, 40_l._, and 50_l._, for the first, second, and third offences, _from selling spirits to young persons under sixteen years of age_.

By the 3rd and 4th Victoria a licence can only be granted to the _real_ occupier of the house; and the rated value to be 15_l._ in towns of 10,000 inhabitants; 11_l._ in towns of between 2,500 and 10,000; and 8_l._ in smaller places. The hours for opening and closing within the metropolitan boroughs are 5 A.M. and 12 P.M.; but 11 o’clock in any place within the bills of mortality, or any city, town, or place not containing above 2,500 inhabitants. In smaller places 10 o’clock P.M. On any Sunday, Good Friday, or Christmas Day, or any day appointed for a public fast or thanksgiving, the houses are not to be opened before one o’clock P.M. Licensed victuallers and keepers of beer-shops who sell ale _to be drunk on the premises_, may have soldiers billeted on them.

On June 15, 1849, a Select Committee of the Lords, on the motion of
the Earl of Harrowby, who became its chairman, was appointed ‘to
consider the operations of the Acts for the sale of beer, and to
report thereon to the House.’ The Committee held sittings June 25,
28, July 5, 12, 13, and 20. Next session it was reappointed, and
took evidence February 28, March 5 and 19; and the report agreed
upon bears date May 3, 1850. Fifteen witnesses were examined in
the first session, and ten in the second session. The Committee’s
report refers to the evidence and petitions which had come before
them, and then proceeds: ‘On a review of all the statements and
opinions which have thus been brought before them, the Committee
have no hesitation in stating that the expectations of those who
proposed the existing system have not been realised. Their object
appears to have been to create a class of houses of refreshment,
respectable in character, brewing their own beer, diminishing
by the supply of a cheap and wholesome beverage the consumption
of ardent spirits, and thus contributing to the happiness and
comforts of the labouring classes. But it appears that of these
houses only one-twelfth brew their own beer; that a very large
proportion are, as in the case of public-houses, the actual
property of brewers, or tied by advances to them; that they are
notorious for the sale of an inferior article; that the consumption
of ardent spirits has, from whatever cause, far from diminished;
and that the comforts and morals of the poor have been seriously
impaired. It was already sufficiently notorious that drunkenness
is the main cause of crime, disorder, and distress in England, and
it appears that the multiplication of houses for the consumption
of intoxicating liquors, which under the Beer Act has risen from
88,930 to 123,396, has been thus in itself an evil of the first
magnitude, not only by increasing the temptations to excess,
which are thus presented at every step, but by driving houses,
even those under the direct control of the magistrates, as well
as others originally respectable, to practices for the purpose of
attracting custom which are degrading to their character, and most
injurious to morality and disorder.’ The increase of crime is next
adverted to, and the defects of the system pointed out, such as an
‘unlimited multiplication’ of the worst class of beer-houses, the
want of security as to character, the low rating, the opening of
beer-houses in obscure localities--‘But, perhaps, the evil of all
the most difficult to deal with is the absence of all control save
by legal conviction almost impracticable to attain.’ ‘The magnitude
of these evils has led to a widely-extended feeling in favour of an
abandonment of that part of the existing law by which consumption
on the premises is permitted. But the existence of houses conducted
under a beer licence with propriety and advantage, and the length
of time which this system has already endured, have made the
Committee unwilling to contemplate a change so extensive until
experience shall have proved that it is impossible by other means
to abate the evil.’ The suggestions of the Select Committee were
to the effect that all beer and coffee-shops should be open to the
visits of the police; that new applicants for a beer licence should
be compelled to procure certificates from the magistrates in Petty
Sessions that they were satisfied as to the rating and character
of the applicant; that the rating should be in places with less
than 2,500 population, 10_l._; under 10,000, 15_l._; above 10,000,
20_l._ (the rating required by the existing law being, severally,
8_l._, 11_l._, and 15_l._); that applicants should give one month’s
notice, the notice to be affixed for three weeks to some public
place, before the Petty Sessions, at which three out of six of the
certifiers to character should attend with the overseers of the
respective parishes, rate-book in hand; no magistrate’s certificate
to be granted to any person convicted of misdemeanour or who had
forfeited a spirit licence; no person licensed to sell beer for
consumption on the premises to sell any other article except
refreshments and tobacco; that debts for intoxicating liquors drunk
on the premises not to be recoverable by law.[233]

In 1853, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to examine into the system under which public-houses, &c., are regulated, with a view of reporting whether any alteration of the law can be made for the better preservation of the public morals, the protection of the revenue, and for the proper accommodation of the public; which sat for 41 days, examining witnesses and considering evidence, under the able presidency of the Right Hon. C. P. Villiers (§ 29). The report and evidence, now published, form two ponderous Blue-books of 1,174 folio pages. The chief points of the _Report from the Select Committee on Public-houses_, July 1854, are the following:--

1. The distinctions as to licences lead to evasion of the law.

2. The distinction between beer-shops and public-houses give rise
to unhealthy competition, under which both parties are drawn to
_extreme expedients for the attraction of custom_. Mr. Stanton, a
publican, says:--‘There is a great deal of gambling carried on in
Birmingham, although the police do all they can to put it down. If
the licensed victuallers did not allow it, the parties would go to
a beer-house.’

3. _Beer is seldom at the public-house what it was at the
brewery._ A late partner in one of the metropolitan breweries
says:--‘It is quite notorious if you drink beer at the brewery, and
at a public-house a little way off, you find it a very different
commodity’ (4538).

4. The drinks are _adulterated_, as well as diluted. Mr. Ridley,
who has under his management certain offices for the analysation
of alcoholic liquors, states that there are several _recipes_,
such as ‘To a barrel of porter [add] 12 gallons of liquor, 4 lbs.
of foots, 1 lb. of salt; and sometimes to bring a head up [and lay
it down?], a little _vitriol_, _cocculus indicus_, also a variety
of things very minute’ (4700). Mr. J. W. McCulloch, analytic
chemist, in 40 samples of brewers’ beer, found 10½ gallons
proof spirit to every 100 gallons, but at several of the licensed
victuallers supplied by those brewers it did not reach 7; and out
of 150 samples there was not one within 20 per cent. of the brewery
standard.

5. That magistrates do not enforce the law, or very rarely.

6. ‘_The beer-shop system has proved a failure._ It was established
under the belief that it would give the public their beer cheap and
pure; would dissociate beer-drinking from drunkenness, and lead to
the establishment, throughout the country, of a class of houses
of refreshment, altogether free from the disorders _supposed_ to
attend _exclusively_ on the sale of spirits.’

7. The Committee concur in the statement of the Lords’ Report on
the Sale of Beer Act, that ‘It was already sufficiently notorious
_that drunkenness is the main cause of crime, disorder, and
distress in England_; and it appears that the multiplication of
houses for the consumption of intoxicating liquors, under the Beer
Act, has risen from 88,930 to 123,306.’

8. That throughout the country ‘the publicans are completely under
the thumb of the brewers.’

9. The trade of a publican is looked upon as a _peculiar
privilege_. The hope of obtaining a licence increases beer-shops.

10. It seems desirable that a higher rate of duty be paid for a
licence, and more stringent regulations enforced as to character
and sureties.

11. Statistics of intemperance defective. The evidence before the
Committee is sufficient to show that the amount of drunkenness
is very much greater than appears upon the face of any official
returns.

12. There are many places where beer is sold without a licence.
Some of them, under cover of the law permitting beer at 1½_d._ a
quart to be sold without licence, sell also porter and ale (6882).
‘At the single town of Fazeley there are about 30 houses that sell
porter, ale, and beer indiscriminately; they are private houses,
known as “Bush-houses,” from their having a bush over the door as a
sign to their frequenters’ (4838, 6840). At Oldham ‘there are from
400 to 500 such places, known there as _Hush-shops_, where they
brew their own beer, and have each their own known customers.’ At
Bolton, at Preston, and in Hampshire and London, similar practices
are more or less prevalent (3664, 3679).

13. ‘The _temptation_ is strong to encourage intemperance, _and a
vast number of the houses for the sale of intoxicating drinks live
upon drunkards and the sure progress of multitudes to drunkenness_.’

14. ‘Your Committee do not feel it _necessary_ to follow the
evidence upon the connection of intoxicating drinks with crime;
it has, directly or indirectly, been the subject of inquiry at
different times, and has been reported upon by numerous committees
of your Honourable House, who bear _unvarying testimony_ both
to the general intemperance of criminals, _and the increase
and diminution of crime in direct ratio with the increased or
diminished consumption of intoxicating drinks_.... The entire
evidence tends to establish that it is _essential_ that the sale of
intoxicating drinks shall be under strict supervision and control.’

15. ‘The testimony is _universal_ that the greatest amount of
drinking takes place on Saturday night, and during the hours that
the houses are allowed by law to be open on Sunday.’

16. ‘It need not be matter of surprise that in view of the vast
mass of evils found in connection with intemperance, it should have
been suggested altogether to _prohibit_ the manufacture and sale of
intoxicating drinks. Laws to that effect are in force in the States
of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Michigan, in
the United States; and your Committee have had before them several
zealous promoters of an Association established to procure the
enactment of similar laws in England.’[234]

On July 13, 1854, Colonel Wilson Patten strove to give effect to the provisions of the Villiers Committee. His Bill, known as the ‘Sunday Beer Act,’ was ‘A Bill for further regulating the sale of beer and other liquors on the Lord’s day.’

This Act closed public-houses and beer-shops on _Sunday_, from half-past two o’clock P.M. until six P.M., and from ten o’clock on Sunday evening until four A.M. on Monday. During the few months of its operating, there was a sensible abatement of drunkenness and disorder, as is testified by the returns from the police, throughout the country. We cite places by way of specimen. _Warrington_: ‘A most remarkable difference is observable in the general order which prevails throughout the town, as well as by the discontinuance of fearful affrays, and riotous conduct.’ _Liverpool_: ‘The new Act,’ says Mr. Greig, head constable of the police, ‘has been attended with the most beneficial results.’ _London_: Mr. G. A’Beckett, magistrate of the Southwark Police Court, in a letter to the _Times_, Jan. 8, 1855, says, ‘that on the Monday mornings before the Act, the business of the court was greater than on any other days, but that since, it had only averaged two cases of drunkenness for each Sunday.’ In 1855, the Wilson Patten Act was superseded by the New Beer Bill of Mr. Henry Berkeley, which extended the hour of closing to eleven at night, and gave a little more freedom to the traffic on the Sunday afternoon. The history of this remarkable piece of legislation is worth preserving, as a monument of its author’s--character. In a speech delivered by him, at the second anniversary dinner of the Licensed Victuallers’ Association, Bristol, reported in the _Bristol Mercury_, of Nov. 4, 1854, he said, that after Wilson Patten’s Bill had passed the second reading, he had been waited on by a deputation, but that being the ‘eleventh hour,’ no successful opposition could then be offered. He believed the words he used to the deputation were, ‘If nobody else comes forward I will have a _shy_ at it.’ This it will be seen, was just _before_ the Bill became law, and, therefore, _before_ it had gone into effect. Mr. Berkeley opposed it without trial, and stood pledged against it without regard to its results. On Feb. 20, 1855, immediately after the meeting of Parliament, Mr. Berkeley, in his place in Parliament, inquired of the Government, whether they intended to do anything in reference to the Act, and received a reply that it was not their intention to repeal it. Mr. Berkeley then recommended the appointment of a select committee. This created considerable division among the publicans, who held many meetings for discussion, at all of which Mr. Berkeley was recognised as ‘_their_ experienced and talented _adviser_.’ (See the _Daily News_, April and May, 1855, and _The Era_ of April 22.) On April 23 a meeting of delegates is reported, in _The Era_ of the 29th, to have been held in Mr. Painter’s public-house, Bridge Street, Westminster, which resulted in the appointment of a deputation to _consult_ with Mr. Berkeley. The deputation is reported to have waited on Mr. Berkeley in the lobby of the House of Commons. ‘A long desultory conversation ensued, after which Mr. Berkeley advised the delegates to confer among themselves, and to consider well the course which would be most beneficial for them to pursue. _He would postpone for a week his motion for a Select Committee...._ Eventually his advice was accepted, and on June 26, 1855, his motion for a Select Committee was agreed to by the House--Mr. Cobbett, the seconder, remarking that no legislation could be attempted that session.[235]

In 1860, Mr. Gladstone’s _Wine Licences Act_ was passed. This measure permitted foreign wines to be sold for consumption on the premises to various classes of refreshment houses. It gave concurrent power to grocers, &c., to sell those wines in bottles for consumption off the premises. The introducer of this measure, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated that the proposal was not intended merely as a means of raising revenue, but as one carrying out the principles of free trade, and contributing to the comforts and conveniences of the people.[236] The following statistics have been carefully gathered by Mr. Samuelson, from which some estimate may be formed of the effect produced by this legislation of Mr. Gladstone:--Beginning with the year 1859, the wine imported from France was 695,911 gallons; from Spain and Portugal, 4,893,916 gallons; whilst in 1876 the wine imported from France was 6,745,710 gallons, and from Spain and Portugal, 10,186,332 gallons. The importation of strong wines had therefore actually fallen below the average of 1863-65, whilst that of French wine had increased tenfold by the reduction of the duty.[237]

In 1863, Mr. J. Somes introduced into Parliament his _Sunday Closing Bill_, which proposed to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, except to _bonâ fide_ travellers, from eleven o’clock on Saturday night to six o’clock Monday morning. The Bill was rejected.

In March 1864, Sir W. Lawson introduced into the House his _Permissive Bill_; which provides that on application of any district, the votes of the ratepayers shall be taken as to whether the traffic shall exist in that district or not; a majority of two-thirds of the ratepayers being necessary to decide the question. This Bill was the embodiment of the principles of the ‘United Kingdom Alliance.’

In 1868, the Bill of Mr. John Abel Smith was rejected; which, while prohibiting Sunday drinking on the premises, allowed four hours for the sale of dinner and supper beer.

In 1869, the Government adopted the Bill of Sir H. Selwyn-Ibbetson, entitled _The Wine and Beerhouse Act_, which transferred the power of licensing beer-houses from the excise to the magistracy, who now could exercise over all applications for new beer and wine licences the same discretionary control, as in the case of spirit licences. By this measure the number of such houses was limited. But the 50,000 existing houses, with the exception of a few denounced dens, were perpetuated--a new monopoly and with it a new vested interest was created, and a point of reform was reached much below that for which the public opinion of the country was prepared.[238]

In 1869, Mr. Peter Rylands moved for the adoption of his Resolution,--‘That in the opinion of this House it is expedient that any measure for the general amendment of the laws for licensing public-houses, beer-houses, and refreshment houses, should include the prohibition of the sale of liquors on Sunday.’ This fell through. But in 1871, the same member succeeded in getting read a second time a much modified Bill, which was, however, negatived when it came on for Committee.

In 1871, Lord Aberdare (then Mr. Bruce), the Home Secretary, introduced a Bill on behalf of the Government, with the professed object of reforming the laws relating to the licensing of the sale of intoxicating liquors. He denounced, in his introductory speech, the existing laws as seriously defective, and tending to undermine the best interests of the community. The Bill was thorough, honest, and calculated in ten years to have changed the face of the community, by its many provisions calculated to restrain the traffic as well as the hours of sale, week day and Sunday.

Amongst its wisest provisions was the appointment of inspectors of the trade. But a panic set in, and Mr. Bruce was obliged to withdraw, and a suspensory measure preventing the issue of any fresh licences for the next year, was introduced by Sir R. Anstruther, and became law. In two years, however, it was succeeded by an amended Bill, which rendered its chief provisions practically null.

In 1872, Mr. Hugh Birley introduced his Sunday Closing Bill into the House. But it got no further than its first reading.

In 1876, Mr. Joseph Cowen’s Bill for the establishment of licensing boards was thrown out.

In 1877, Mr. Chamberlain introduced a motion for the adoption of the ‘Gothenburg System,’ the main principle of which is, that municipal corporations should have power to buy up and become owners of public-house licences, their agents to have no personal or pecuniary interest in the profits, but rather be encouraged to push the sale of food and non-intoxicants, and all profits derived from the sale of intoxicating liquors be devoted to the relief of the rates, &c. The motion was rejected.

In 1876 ‘The Lords’ Committee on Intemperance’ was appointed, on the motion of Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘for the purpose of inquiring into the prevalence of habits of intemperance, and into the manner in which these habits have been affected by recent legislation and other causes.’[239]

In 1877-78, the committee, not having as yet acted, was reappointed. One hundred witnesses were examined, including members of Parliament, magistrates, clergymen, constables, municipal authorities, doctors, merchants, &c. In their bulky report, issued in 1879, they recommend:--

1. That legislative facilities should be afforded for the local
adoption of the Gothenburg and Chamberlain schemes, or of some
modification of them.

2. That renewals of beer-house licences before 1879 should be
placed on the same footing as those of public-houses.

3. That in cases of decisions affecting the renewal of licences in
boroughs having separate quarter sessions, the appeal shall be to
the Recorder, where there is one, and not to the county justices.

4. That justices should be authorised to refuse transfers on the
same grounds of misconduct as those on which renewals of licences
are now refused.

5. That no removal of a licence from house to house should be
sanctioned without allowing the inhabitants of the interested
locality the opportunity of expressing their objections.

6. A considerable increase in licence duties.

7. Licensed houses outside the metropolis, not to open before 7
A.M. and be closed earlier than at present.

8. That licensed houses in Scotland and Ireland be closed one hour
earlier than at present on week-days.

9. That on Sundays, licensed houses in the metropolis should be
open from _one_ to _three_ P.M. for consumption off the premises,
and for consumption on, from _seven_ to _eleven_ P.M. In other
places from 12.30 to 2.30 P.M. for consumption off, and for
consumption on the premises from 7 to 10 P.M. in populous places,
and from 7 to 9 in others.

10. Even if a person, professing to be a _bonâ fide_ traveller, has
on the previous night lodged outside the 3-mile limit, as defined
by the Act, it still rests with the magistrates to determine
whether he be a _bonâ fide_ traveller or not.

11. That justices should have discretionary power of licensing
music-halls and dancing saloons in the country as at present in the
metropolis, whether connected with public-houses or not, and that
all such places should be subject to supervision by the police.

12. That certain serious offences should entail the compulsory
endorsement of the licence, and that the treating of constables
should be added to the list of offences included in the category.

13. That any person ‘having or keeping for sale’ any intoxicating
liquors without a licence, should be liable to penalties of the
same description and amount as those under the existing law ‘for
selling or exposing for sale,’ and that the powers of apprehension
upon warrant in cases of illicit drinking should be generally
applied.

14. That the entering of liquors under some other name upon the
bill of a shopkeeper holding a licence to sell off the premises
should be an offence against the licence punishable by immediate
forfeiture.

15. That a list of convictions kept by the justices’ clerks should
be legal evidence of previous convictions.

16. That all occasional licences to sell elsewhere than on licensed
premises should be granted by two justices at quarter sessions.

17. That fines and penalties should apply in Scotland as in England.

18. That the ‘Grocers’ Licence’ recommendation of the Royal
Commission of 1877 should be adopted in Ireland.

19. That in Ireland and Scotland, as in England, no spirits should
be sold to children under sixteen.[240]

In 1879, Dr. Cameron’s Habitual Drunkards Bill became law.

In the same year, Mr. Stevenson introduced the English Sunday Closing Bill, which met with a by no means unfavourable reception, though it was not at present carried. The following year he moved again in the same direction. Mr. Pease carried an amendment to this which provided for off sale during limited hours in the country, and for such modified sale in the metropolitan districts as would satisfy the wish of the country.

In 1880, Sir Wilfrid Lawson carried his ‘Local Option’ resolution, by a majority of twenty-six. This was another form of the original ‘Permissive Bill.’ All detail is here omitted. It affirms the justice of local communities being entrusted with the power to protect themselves from the operation of the liquor traffic.

In June, 1881, the same baronet moved: ‘That in the opinion of this House, it is desirable to give legislative effect to the resolution passed on June 18, 1880.’ This was carried by a majority of forty-two.

Earl Stanhope’s Bill for preventing payment of wages in public-houses has passed the Upper House.

An important scheme of amendment of the licensing laws was put forward by the ‘Committee on Intemperance for the Lower House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury.’

Convinced that without an improved and stringent system of
legislation, and its strict enforcement, no effectual and permanent
remedy for intemperance can be looked for, they urge as

_Legislative Remedies_

1. The repeal of the Beer Act of 1830, and the total suppression of
beer-houses throughout the country.

2. The closing of public-houses on Sunday, _bonâ fide_ travellers
excepted.

3. The earlier closing of public-houses on week-days, especially on
Saturday.

4. A great reduction in the number of public-houses throughout the
kingdom; it being in evidence that in proportion as facilities for
drinking are reduced, intemperance is restrained.

5. Placing the whole licensing system under one authority.

6. The rigid enforcement of the penalties now attached to
drunkenness, both on the actual offenders and on licensed persons
who allow drunkenness to occur on their premises.

7. Passing an Act to prevent the same person holding a music,
dancing, or billiard licence, in conjunction with a drink licence.

8. Prohibiting the use of public-houses as committee rooms at
elections, and closing such houses on the days of nomination and
election in every Parliamentary borough.

9. The appointment of a distinct class of police for the inspection
of public-houses, and frequent visitation of publics for the
detection of adulterations, to be followed, on conviction, with
severe penalties.

10. The repeal of all the duties on tea, coffee, chocolate, and
sugar.

11. Your Committee, in conclusion, are of opinion that as the
ancient and avowed object of licensing the sale of intoxicating
liquors is to supply a supposed public want, without detriment
to the public welfare, a legal power of restraining the issue or
renewal of licences should be placed in the hands of the persons
most deeply interested and affected--namely, the inhabitants
themselves--who are entitled to protection from the injurious
consequences of the present system. Such a power would, in effect,
secure to the districts, willing to exercise it, the advantages now
enjoyed by the numerous parishes in the Province of Canterbury,
where, according to reports furnished to your Committee, owing to
the influence of the landowner, no sale of intoxicating liquors is
licensed.

Few, it may be believed, are cognisant of the fact that there are at this time within the Province of Canterbury, more than one thousand parishes in which there is neither public-house nor beer-shop; and where, in consequence of the absence of these inducements to crime and pauperism, the intelligence, morality and comfort of the people are such as the friends of temperance would have anticipated.

The non-legislative recommendations urge the removal of benefit clubs from taverns, the discontinuance of wage-payment in them, and the providing of ample and varied counter-attractions.

Thus much for legislation, and for the impulses that stimulate thereunto. Much has been written both for and against restriction. Violently opposed to it was Mr. John Stuart Mill, who may well claim to be the mouthpiece of the adversaries of prohibition. Speaking on the laws against intemperance in his _Essay on Liberty_, he remarks:--

Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one
English colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been
interdicted by law from making any use whatever of fermented
drinks, except for medical purposes; for prohibition of their sale
is, in fact, as it is intended to be, prohibition of their use. And
though the impracticability of executing the law has caused its
repeal in several of the states which had adopted it, including the
one from which it derives its name, an attempt has notwithstanding
been commenced, and is prosecuted with considerable zeal by many
of the professed philanthropists, to agitate for a similar law
in this country. The association, or ‘Alliance,’ as it terms
itself, which has been formed for this purpose, has acquired some
notoriety through the publicity given to a correspondence between
its secretary and one of the very few English public men who hold
that a politician’s opinions ought to be founded on principles.
Lord Stanley’s share in this correspondence is calculated to
strengthen the hopes already built on him, by those who know
how rare such qualities as are manifested in some of his public
appearances, unhappily are among those who figure in political
life. The organ of the Alliance, who would ‘deeply deplore the
recognition of any principle which could be wrested to justify
bigotry and persecution,’ undertakes to point out the ‘broad and
impassable barrier’ which divides such principles from those of the
association. ‘All matters relating to thought, opinion, conscience,
appear to me,’ he says, ‘to be without the sphere of legislation;
all pertaining to social act, habit, relation, subject only to a
discretionary power vested in the state itself, and not in the
individual to be within it.’ No mention is made of a third class,
different from either of these--namely, acts and habits which are
not social, but individual--although it is to this class, surely,
that the act of drinking fermented liquors belongs. Selling
fermented liquors, however, is trading, and trading is a social
act. But the infringement complained of is not on the liberty
of the seller, but on that of the buyer and consumer; since the
state might just as well forbid him to drink wine, as purposely
make it impossible for him to obtain it. The secretary, however,
says: ‘I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate whenever my
social rights are invaded by the social act of another.’ And now
for the definition of these ‘social rights.’ ‘If anything invades
my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It
destroys my primary right of security, by constantly creating and
stimulating social disorder. It invades my right of equality,
by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery I am taxed
to support. It impedes my right to free moral and intellectual
development, by surrounding my path with dangers, and by weakening
and demoralising society from which I have a right to claim mutual
aid and intercourse.’ A theory of ‘social rights,’ the like of
which probably never before found its way into distinct language;
being nothing short of this, that it is the absolute social right
of every individual, that every other individual shall act in
every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in
the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles
me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance.
So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single
interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which
it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom
whatever, except, perhaps, to that of holding opinions in secret,
without ever disclosing them; for the moment, an opinion, which I
consider noxious, passes any one’s lips, it invades all the ‘social
rights’ attributed to me by the Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to
all mankind a vested interest in each other’s moral, intellectual,
and even physical perfection, to be defined by each claimant
according to his own standard.

Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, from another point of view, and looking at the probable effects of restraint, makes the following remarkable observation:--

Obedience to his genius is a man’s only liberating influence. We
wish to escape from subjection, and a sense of inferiority--and
we make self-denying ordinances, we drink water, we eat grass,
we refuse the laws, we go to jail: it is all in vain; only by
obedience to his genius, only by the freest activity in the way
constitutional to him, does an angel seem to arise before a man,
and lead him by the hand out of all the wards of the prison.[241]

And it was from deep conviction, and not as a flippant apophthegm, that Bishop Magee pronounced that he preferred to see England free, to England sober.

Yet Mr. Augustus Sala, a man of ample observation and reflection, thought otherwise. He says:--

We drink the very strongest liquors that can be brewed or
distilled; the classes among us who are not decent are in the habit
of getting mad drunk, and of fighting, after the manner of wild
beasts when they have a chance of using their fists, their feet,
or their teeth on each other, or on the guardians of the law. Our
places of licensed victualling are merely ugly dens, where the
largest number of sots can get tipsy in the shortest space of time;
and Sunday in London with all the public-houses, all the music
halls thrown unrestrictedly open from morning till night would
exhibit the most horrible terrestrial _inferno_ that eye ever
beheld, that the ear ever heard, or the heart ever sickened at. We
are so very strong and stalwart, and earnest, and English, in a
word, that we need in our diversions a number of restrictive check
and kicking-straps, which the feebler and less pugnacious people of
the Continent do not require.[242]

He felt that:--

Law does not put the least restraint
Upon our freedom, but maintains it:
Or, if it does, ‘tis for our good
To give us freer latitude
For wholesome laws preserve us free
By stinting of our liberty.

Or, as it has been admirably expressed:--

There are wheels within wheels, and there are liberties within
liberties; and what we contend for in respect to liberty is this,
that we are preaching against a liberty which is created, and for a
liberty which is eternal.

At any rate, as long as it can be proved that drunkenness prevails in any sense in the direct ratio of the facilities for obtaining drink, so long must the question of those facilities remain upon the legislative agenda.

The problem is: can you separate the facilities for getting drink from those of getting drunken. For the man who can solve this problem, a niche in the temple of fame remains unfilled.

There are plenty who are ready to exclaim that the causes of excess are easy to define. They would tell us that it arises from an unholy alliance between human nature and artificial stimulant. And they would glibly argue--take away the man from the drink, or the drink from the man, and excess is at an end. But one of these factors, human nature, declines the divorce. Still, however, there remains a sphere for legislative and philanthropic effort. There may be a loosing of the bands of this too often unholy alliance. You may get rid of many predisposing causes.

One of these, and a powerful one, is _ignorance_, and that of many kinds. Mr. Buckle remarks:--

The most active cause of crime is drunkenness, and this is caused
partly by misery, partly by ignorance, which makes men think it
a _remedy_, and partly by a want of intellectual occupation....
Drunkenness caused by an _ignorant_ belief that without spirits
and beer, strength to work cannot be kept up.... The greater
the amount of misery and depression, the greater the amount of
drunkenness.[243]

M. Compte thought that drunkenness is promoted by an _ignorance of its results_: and there is an element of truth here. How many vainly look to it to drive away remorse, care, and sorrow; thus, Horace (i. 18):--

Neque
Mordaces aliter diffugiunt sollicitudines.

Liebig, in his _Letters on Chemistry_, says that it is the effect of _poverty_, deficient nutriment requiring the compensation of alcohol. Horace seems to have combined these notions:--

Ebrietas quid non designat? operta recludit
Spes jubet esse ratas: in prælia trudit inertem,
Sollicitis animis onus eximit: addocet artes.
Fæcundi calices, quem non fecere disertum?
Contracta quem non in paupertate solutum.

And to much the same effect, Ovid:--

Vina parant animos, faciuntque coloribus aptos.
Cura fugit, multo diluiturque mero.
Tunc veniunt risus, tunc pauper cornua sumit,
Tunc dolor et curæ, rugaque frontis abit.
Tunc aperit mentes, ævo rarissima nostro
Simplicitas, artes excutiente Deo.

Others assign as the cause _depressing influences_. Thus in the _Transactions of Association for Promoting Social Science_, London, 1859, pp. 86-89, ‘it is said that crime is caused by drunkenness, and that (drunkenness) by foul air and the depressing influence of bad localities, bringing with it a fierce desire for stimulants, and by bad and deficient water.’

The poet Burns contributed not a little to the popular notion that under such circumstances strong drink (particularly the ‘mountain dew’) was the panacea:--

Food fills the wame, an’ keeps us livin’:
Tho’ life’s a gift no worth receivin’,
When heavy dragg’d wi’ pine and grievin’;
But oil’d by thee,
The wheels o’ life gae down-hill scrievin’,
Wi’ rattlin glee.

Thou clears the head o’ doited lear;
Thou cheers the heart o’ drooping care;
Thou strings the nerves o’ labour sair,
At’s weary toil;
Thou even brightens dark despair
Wi’ gloomy smile.

Again, the _social usages of society_ have a powerful tendency to indulgence. Friendship and good cheer seem indissolubly intertwined. Cups that cheer have long been regarded as essential items. But it must be set down as an unquestionable fact that in the higher circles of society, far less is drunk than formerly. The London clubs are a very fair index of the condition of things existing within that sphere. In them, excess is now practically unknown; at any rate in the more select clubs. Their cellars teem with good wine now, as they did half a century ago, when we read:--

The value of the stores found in the cellars of the various
Club-houses in London, may be adduced in evidence of the
estimation in which wine is held, by a portion, at least, of
the higher classes in the metropolis. Carlton Club, 1,500_l._;
United University Club, not much under 2,000_l._ The Literary and
Scientific Athenæum, 3,500_l._ to 4,000_l._ The Union Club appears
to exceed the rest in the contents of its cellars, which remarks
the writer, from whose work we extract this information, ‘disguise
it as people will, is the most important matter after all.’ The
stock of wine (the Chairman declares it to be an under-estimate)
according to a recent valuation, amounts to 7,150_l._ The Junior
United Service Club values its stock of wines at 3,722_l._ Those
of the United Service Club are worth, it is said, 7,722_l._[244]

But riot and rowdyism are things of the past.

Among the middle classes, many of the compulsory drinking usages are swept away. In Mr. Dunlop’s interesting volume, no less than 297 of these _usages_ are specified as then rife.[245] A much improved tone is observable amongst _commercial travellers_ than some fifty years ago, when the modern Ramazzini wrote:--

Well fed, riding from town to town, and walking to the houses
of the several tradesmen, they have an employment not only more
agreeable, but more conducive to health than almost any other
dependent on traffic. But they destroy their constitutions by
intemperance; not generally by drunkenness, but by taking more
liquor than nature requires. Dining at the traveller’s table, each
drinks his pint or bottle of wine; he then takes negus or spirit
with several of his customers, and at night he must have a glass or
two of brandy and water. Few commercial travellers bear the employ
for thirty years--the majority not twenty.[246]

And Mr. Samuelson, in his _History of Drink_, sees traces of an improving tone amongst the operative classes; of which, amongst other things, the dissociation of benefit and other clubs from taverns, is an index.

There are fewer now to sneer at the efforts for a moral regeneration. It may be doubted if Mr. Barham would to-day gloat over his lines in the _Milkmaid’s Story_:--

Mr. David has since had a ‘serious call,’
He never drinks ale, wine, or spirits, at all,
And they say he is going to Exeter Hall
To make a grand speech, and to preach, and to teach
People that ‘they can’t brew their malt liquor too small.’
That an ancient Welsh Poet, one Pyndar ap Tudor,
Was right in proclaiming ‘Ariston men Udor!’
Which Means ‘The pure Element is for Man’s belly meant!’
And that _Gin’s_ but a _Snare_ of Old Nick the deluder!

Some of the finest writers of our time have exercised their pen in describing the horrors of intemperance. Charles Kingsley writes:--

Go, scented Belgravians, and see what London is. Look! there’s
not a soul down that yard, but’s either beggar, drunkard, thief,
or worse. Write anent that! Say how ye saw the mouth o’ Hell, and
the twa pillars thereof at the entry--the Pawnbroker’s shop o’
one side, and the Gin-palace at the other--twa monstrous deevils,
eating up men and women and bairns, body and soul. Look at the jaws
o’ the monsters, how they open and open and swallow in anither
victim and anither. Write anent _that_!... Are not they a mair
damnable, man-devouring Idol than ony red-hot statue of Moloch,
or wicker Magog, wherein the auld Britons burnt their prisoners?
Look at those bare-footed, bare-backed hizzies, with their arms
round the men’s neck, and their mouths full o’ vitriol and beastly
words! Look at that Irishman pouring the gin down the babbie’s
throat! Look at that rough of a boy gaun out o’ the pawnshop, where
he’s been pledging the handkerchief he stole the morning, into the
ginshop, to buy beer poisoned wi’ grains of paradise and cocculus
indicus, and salt, and a’ damnable, maddening, thirst-breeding,
lust-breeding drugs! Look at that girl that went in with a
shawl on her back, and cam’ out without ane! Drunkards frae the
breast!--harlots frae the cradle!--damned before they’re born![247]

Mr. Ruskin has said that

drunkenness is not only the cause of crime, but that it _is_ crime;
and that if any encourage drunkenness for the sake of the profit
derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral
assassination as criminal as any that has ever been practised by
the bravos of any country or of any age.

Even Carlyle could doff his mannerism to state his conviction that gin is the most authentic incarnation of the infernal principle that is yet discovered. Cobden and Bright have hurled at the whole business their unmeasured anathemas.

But probably no individual has done more, within living memory, to educate and stimulate the national conscience than the late George Cruikshank. From the first (says Mr. Thompson Cooper)[248] he had shown a strong tendency to administer reproof in his treatment of intoxication and its accompanying vices. Instances of this tendency are to be found in his _Sunday in London_, _The Gin Trap_, _The Gin Juggernaut_, and more especially in his series of eight prints entitled _The Bottle_; the latter of which had eminent success, and was dramatised at eight theatres in London at one time. It brought the author into direct personal connection with the leaders of the temperance movement. As he, moreover, became a convert himself to their doctrines, he was one of the ablest advocates of the temperance cause. Of late years, Mr. Cruikshank turned his attention to oil-painting, a branch of art in which he so far educated himself as to make his pictures sought after by connoisseurs.

The great work by which this Hogarth of the nineteenth century will be remembered in the present connection is a large picture entitled _The Worship of Bacchus_, which he exhibited to the Queen at Windsor in 1863. An engraving of this picture has been published in which all the figures are outlined by the painter, and finished by Mr. H. Mottram. The painting itself is now the property of the nation.[249]

In addition to individual endeavour, countless societies, national, provincial, and local, have been formed throughout the country to stem the evil; prominent among these are the Church of England Temperance Society, with her Majesty the Queen as patron, and the entire bench of bishops with numerous other leaders of society as its vice-presidents; the National Temperance League; the United Kingdom Alliance; the United Kingdom Band of Hope; the League of the Holy Cross, with many other denominational societies; the Order of Good Templars; the Rechabites; whilst the neophytes of Blue Ribbonism are legion.

Further than these, every species of counter-attraction is being furthered.[250] Education is made possible, nay, compulsory, almost to all. Better dwellings are being provided for the poor, and solid security for their savings. Recreations are being provided for the masses; and a vastly improved system of sanitation. The medical world[251] is giving the subject its close attention, and as the result of its labours of close observation and analysis, the fallacies of a past and less scientific age are being dethroned; and as a tangible outcome, temperance hospitals and homes are being erected.

And whilst philanthropy is engaged in one direction in reforming the drunkards, in another it is busy in reforming the drinks. Thus, Mr. Edward Bradbury writes in _Time_:--

If Sir Wilfrid Lawson, and his fervent followers, would accomplish
a substantial reform in the drinking habits of the United
Kingdom, let them turn their zeal to the villanous compounds
which audaciously counterfeit Scotch whiskey. Such spirits as
are issued from this ancient Oban Distillery conduce to ‘good
spirits.’ The influence of honest Scotch whiskey tends to joviality
and generosity, instead of violence and murder; to good temper
and amity instead of violence and blows. Bacchus by the ancients
was regarded as the god of harmony and reconciliation. There
are many poisonous pretenders to Scotch whiskey; and it is when
fusel-oil masquerades as pure spirit that the evil comes. The
licensed victualler who dispenses such abominable stuff ought to be
treated as one of the criminal classes. It is liquid lunacy, fluid
ferocity, distilled damnation, akin to that compound which Cassio
drank in Cyprus, of which

‘Every cup is unbless’d, and the ingredient is a devil.’

Much of the drunkenness which disgraces our civilisation is due
to ‘doctored’ drink. Alfred Tennyson was incensed by this reign
of adulteration when he wrote those impassioned lines in his poem
_Maud_:--

‘And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s brain,
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife,
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.’

The quantity of ‘vitriol madness’ which unprincipled dealers push
into the market, and which is sold cheaply to the unscrupulous
proprietors of garish dram-shops to be disposed of dearly enough
to deluded customers, is at once great and glaring. I wonder the
Temperance party do not use their earnestness in the cause of
reforming the drink, so that when the poor man wants whiskey he
gets it, and not turpentine and fusel-oil and amylic atrocities; or
when the doctor orders the sick woman port wine she is not imposed
upon by a fraudulent decoction of logwood. Our ancestors, wiser
in their generation, appointed ‘ale-tasters,’ who did their duty
without fear or favour. Why cannot ‘spirit-tasters’ be introduced
in our day? Or, why cannot whiskey come within the limits of the
Food Adulteration Act? The quantity of bad whiskey made in Great
Britain is amazing. To use the word ‘whiskey’ is an outrage of the
term. ‘Patent spirit’ is the Excise description for this fluid,
which is made by a special apparatus, known as the Coffey Patent
Still, from maize, rice, damaged barley, &c. Malting would be too
costly, so this material is converted into starch and saccharine by
a process of vitriol. It is then passed through the Coffey Still by
only one process, and boiled by steam instead of fire. The patent
spirit is ostensibly sold for blending purposes, and for cheapening
finer spirit. Some of these cheap whiskies are as combustible as
that Bourbon spirit of which a man once partook, and found so
inflammable that--blowing his nose directly afterwards--he found
his pocket-handkerchief in flames. Such whiskey, they say in the
States, kills dead at ten paces, and no human being drinking it
ever lives to pay his debts.

Still, intemperance, like a myriad-headed monster, rears its hideous head, and the usual thirty millions sterling in the shape of taxation rolls into the lap of the reluctant Chancellor of the Exchequer. _Reluctant_, for so they would have us understand their attitude towards their gains from a nation’s indulgence. A comparatively recent Chancellor, Sir Stafford Northcote, in his budget speech, 1874, remarked:--

If the reduction of the revenue derived from spirits be due to
other causes; if it should be due to a material and considerable
change in the habits of the people, and increasing habits of
temperance and abstinence from the use of ardent spirits, I venture
to say that the amount of wealth such a change would bring to the
nation would utterly throw into the shade the amount of revenue
that is now derived from the spirit duty.

Nearly a century ago, Sir Frederic Eden, in his _State of the Poor_, observed:--