Verily, ‘_nulli vitio unquam defuit advocatus_.’ He seems to have

hunted up _bon-mots_, or rather _mal-mots_ from every toping author

that was to hand, _e.g._ he cites Seneca (_De Tranquillitate_):--‘As

drunkenness causes some distempers, so it is a sovereign remedy for our

sorrows.’ Propertius--‘Alas! so then wine lives longer than man, let

us then sit down and drink bumpers; life and wine are the same thing.’

Horace--‘That nectar which the blessed vines produce, the height of all

our joy and wishes here.’ La Motte:--

A l’envi laissons nous saisir,

Aux transports d’une douce ivresse:

Qu’importe si c’est un plaisir,

Que ce soit folie ou sagesse.

These are specimens of the sources from which the author, ‘Boniface

Oinophilus’ drew.[228]

But we travel to far other soil.

The poet Cowper [_b._ 1781, _d._ 1800], the intellectual ancestor of

Wordsworth, has several pictures of his times in his writings.

With a lofty and noble morality does he describe the truly gay:--

Whom call we gay? That honour has been long

The boast of mere pretenders to the name.

The innocent are gay--the lark is gay,

That dries his feathers saturate with dew

Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams

Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.

The peasant too, a witness of his song,

Himself a songster, is as gay as he.

But save me from the gaiety of those

Whose headaches nail them to a noon-day bed;

And save me too from theirs whose haggard eyes

Flash desperation, and betray their pangs

For property stripp’d off by cruel chance;

From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,

The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.

_The Task_, Book I., ‘The Sofa.’

Noble lines these, breathing much of the spirit of Horace’s noble

ethics:--

Non possidentem multa vocaveris

Recte beatum. Rectius occupat

Nomen beati qui deorum

Muneribus sapienter uti,

Calletque duram pauperiem pati,

Pejusque leto flagitium timet.

Non ille pro caris amicis,

Non patriâ timidus perire.

There was not perhaps much need for our poet to dread the gout:--

Oh may I live exempted (while I live

Guiltless of pamper’d appetite obscene),

From pangs arthritic, that infest the toe

Of libertine Excess!

_The Task_, Book I., ‘The Sofa.’

Certainly not if the following picture was his usual evening

condition:--

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

_The Task_, Book IV., ‘The Winter Evening.’

Commenting upon the usual misquotation of this passage, which

provincial newspapers make a point of rendering:--‘The cup that cheers’

&c., Cuthbert Bede adds:--

The poet of ‘The Task’ spoke of ‘cups;’ and, it is very evident,

from the graphic description of the accompanying urn, that those

cups were intended to hold a certain beverage that had been

introduced into England about 130 years before ‘The Task’ was

written, and which, by those who could afford to purchase it

at the high price then demanded for it, was known as ‘Tea.’ It

might be urged, with more ingenuity than plausibility, that, as

Cowper does not mention the contents of the cups, they, together

with the hot water in the loud-hissing urn, might have been used

for some of those compounds, familiarly known as ‘Cups.’ Thus,

there were ‘cups’ of spiced wine, Claret, Burgundy, Gilliflower

sack, Hydromel (which was recommended by Lord Holles to those

who abjured wine, and was composed of honey, spring-water, and

ginger), Cider, and many kinds of ale and Beer-cups, distinguished

by such extraordinary names as Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Old

Pharaoh, Hugmatee, Stitchback, Cock-ale, Three-threads, Mum, and

Knock-me-down, which last name is particularly suggestive of the

probable result of the toper’s indulgence in a brew of hot ale-cup,

in which gin was a leading ingredient.

It is very evident that it could only be a person who was very

hard-up for an argument, who could think of framing such an

accusation against the abstemious and gentle William Cowper, and

who could interpret his ‘cups’ in any other sense than as cups for

tea. In fact, the whole passage presents to us a tea-table scene;

and, as we read it, we can see the comfortable parlour at Olney,

the curtains closely drawn--in that respect very sensibly differing

from

‘The half-uncurtain’d window,’

mentioned in the winter-evening’s scene, in Campbell’s ‘Pleasures

of Hope’--with the bubbling urn, containing, possibly, the tea

already made, or else ready to contribute its boiling stream to the

tea-pot.

But this sort of evening was not the usual evening in England in 1785.

Much more frequently was the evening spent in what our poet himself

calls ‘the quenchless thirst of ruinous ebriety,’ and describes in the

following lines (_Task_, lib. iv.):--

Pass where we may, through city or through town,

Village or hamlet of this merry land,

Though lean and beggar’d, every twentieth pace

Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff

Of stale debauch, forth issuing from the styes

That Law has licensed, as makes Temperance reel.

There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds

Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,

The lackey, and the groom: the craftsman there

Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil;

Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,

And he that kneads the dough; all aloud alike,

All learned, and all drunk! the fiddle screams

Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wail’d

Its wasted tones and harmony unheard.

* * * * *

‘Tis here they learn

The road that leads from competence and peace

To indigence and rapine; till at last

Society, grown weary of the load,

Shakes her encumber’d lap, and casts them out.

But censure profits little: vain the attempt

To advertise in verse a public pest

That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds

His hungry acres, stinks and is of use.

The excise is fatten’d with the rich result

Of all this riot: and ten thousand casks

For ever dribbling out their base contents,

Touch’d by the Midas finger of the State,

Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.

Drink and be mad then; ‘tis your country bids!

Gloriously drunk obey the important call!

Her cause demands the assistance of your throats

Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.

Towards the end of the progress of error is the sage advice:--

With caution taste the sweet Circæan cup;

He that sips often at last drinks it up.

Habits are soon assumed, but when we strive

To strip them off ‘tis being flayed alive.

Call’d to the temple of impure delight

He that abstains, and he alone, does right.

Finally, an admirable moral is contained in the lines:--

Pleasure admitted in undue degree

Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.

‘Tis not alone the grape’s enticing juice

Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use;

Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame,

And woman, lovely woman, does the same.

Wordsworth was a most abstemious man. He and his wife drank water, and

ate the simplest fare. When Scott stayed with him at Rydal Mount, he

had to hie him to the nearest public-house not unfrequently.

Myers has observed, in his monograph on the poet in _English Men of

Letters_:--

The poet of the _Waggoner_--who, himself an habitual water-drinker,

has so glowingly described the glorification which the prospect of

nature receives in a half-intoxicated brain--may justly claim that

he can enter into all genuine pleasures, even of an order which he

declines for himself. With anything that is false or artificial

he cannot sympathise, nor with such faults as baseness, cruelty,

rancour, which seem contrary to human nature itself; but in dealing

with faults of mere _weakness_ he is far less strait-laced than

many less virtuous men.

His comment on Burns’ _Tam o’ Shanter_ will perhaps surprise some

readers who are accustomed to think of him only in his didactic

attitude.

_Wordsworth’s Criticism._

... Who, but some impenetrable dunce or narrow-minded puritan in

works of art, ever read without delight the picture which Burns

has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer Tam

o’ Shanter? The poet fears not to tell the reader in the outset

that his hero was a desperate and sottish drunkard, whose excesses

were as frequent as his opportunities. This reprobate sits down

to his cups while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth

are in confusion; the night is driven on by song and tumultuous

noise, laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the

palate--conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general

benevolence--selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of

social cordiality; and while these various elements of humanity are

blended into one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the

anger of the tempest without doors only heightens and sets off the

enjoyment within. I pity him who cannot perceive that in all this,

though there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect.

‘Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,

O’er a’ the _ills_ of life victorious.’

What a lesson do these words convey of charitable indulgence for

the vicious habits of the principal actor in the scene, and of

those who resemble him! Men who to the rigidly virtuous are objects

almost of loathing, and whom therefore they cannot serve! The

poet, penetrating the unsightly and disgusting surfaces of things,

has unveiled with exquisite skill the finer ties of imagination and

feeling that often bind these beings to practices productive of

so much unhappiness to themselves, and to those whom it is their

duty to cherish; and, as far as he puts the reader into possession

of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies him for exercising a

salutary influence over the minds of those who are thus deplorably

enslaved.

The poet Southey’s opinion of the ale-house, _versus_ the home, is as

true of our own times as his own:--

For the labouring man the ale-house is too often a place of

unmingled evil; where, while he is single, he squanders the money

which ought to be laid up as a provision for marriage or old age;

and where, if he frequent it after he is married, he commits the

far heavier sin of spending, for his own selfish gratification, the

earnings upon which the woman and children whom he has rendered

dependent upon him have the strongest of all claims.

Of the drink itself he writes:--

But Thalaba took not the draught,

For right he knew the Prophet had forbidden

That beverage, the mother of sins;

Nor did the urgent guests

Proffer the second time the liquid fire,

For in the youth’s strong eye they saw

No movable resolve.

William Playfair, the famous political economist, wrote in 1805 his

_Enquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful

and Wealthy Nations_. He has some striking remarks upon the bearing of

_revenue_ upon the drink traffic:--

When a nation becomes the slave of its revenue, and sacrifices

everything to that object, _abuses that favour revenue are

difficult to reform_; but surely it would be well to take some

mode to prevent the _facility with which people get drunk_,

and the temptation that is laid to do so. The immense number

of public-houses, and the way in which they give credit, are

undoubtedly, in part, causes of this evil. _It would be easy to

lessen the number_, without hurting liberty, and it would be no

injustice if publicans were prevented from legal recovery for

beer or spirits consumed in their houses, in the same manner that

payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of

age, unless for necessaries. There could be no hardship in this,

and it would produce a great reform in the manners of the lower

orders. There are only three modes of teaching youth the way to

well-doing--by precept, by example, and by habit at an early age.

Precept, without example and habit, has but little weight, yet how

can a child have either of these, if the parents are encouraged and

assisted in living a vicious life? Nations and individuals should

guard against those vices to which they find they have a natural

disposition; and drinking and gluttony are the vices to which the

common people in this country are the most addicted.

We now pass to some of the political action of the reign. In 1768,

Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a new tax

on cider and perry, amounting to ten shillings on the hogshead. Earl

Stanhope states that the outcry was so vehement that a modification of

the scheme was all that was granted, and four shillings were to be paid

by the grower. In the Upper House the Bill was also strongly opposed,

but the Ministry carried the point. Bute incurred much odium. People

compared the rash disregard of popular opinion with which this measure

was pushed through with the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, who had

bowed to the public demonstrations against his system of excise; and

when Bute’s resignation was announced many ascribed his retreat to the

alarm raised by the popular indignation. A caricature entitled, _The

Roasted Exciseman; or, the Jack Boot’s exit_, represents the enraged

mob burning the effigy of a Scotchman suspended on a gallows; a great

worn boot lies on the bonfire, into which a man is throwing an excised

cider barrel as fuel.

The City of London presented a petition against the tax at the bar of

the House of Commons, but to no effect; and in the cider counties it

was found hard indeed to enforce the duties imposed.

One of many lachrymations was Benjamin Heath’s _The Case of the County

of Devon_, 1763. An address to honest English hearts, being an honest

countryman’s reflections on the cider tax, 1763. Some plain reasons for

the repeal of the cider tax, dedicated to every man who pays taxes,

and particularly to the Honourable G---- J----, M.P. for Norfolk, &c.,

1763. An address to the electors, such as are not makers of cider and

perry, 1787.

The tax on beer, too, early in the reign, had greatly exasperated

the mob. The _Royal Magazine_ tells that while their Majesties were

at Drury Lane Theatre, to see the _Winter’s Tale_, as Garrick was

repeating the lines:--

‘For you, my hearts of oak, for your regale,

Here’s good old English stingo, mild and stale,’

a fellow cried out of the gallery: ‘At threepence a pot, Master

Garrick, or confusion to the brewers!’

Imposts on _malt_ were continually brought forward. The brewers as well

as their clients were wild. Mr. Whitbread inveighed on one occasion

against the Ministers for laying a _war tax_ upon malt. Sheridan,

who was present, could not resist a shy at the brewer. He wrote on a

paper the following lines, and handed them to Mr. Whitbread across the

table:--

They’ve raised the price of table drink;

What is the reason, do you think?

The tax on _malt_’s the cause I hear--

But what has _malt_ to do with _beer_?

In 1791, the House of Commons was again induced to consider the

question, and a committee came to the resolution: ‘That the number of

persons empowered to retail spirits should be greatly diminished,’ &c.

Certain Acts were passed, encouraging the rival trade of the brewers.

_Grocers were prohibited from selling drams in their shops_, &c. The

Speaker of the House, in his speech at the bar of the Lords, March,

1795, and in an address delivered on presenting the Bills of Supply,

which received the unanimous thanks of the Lower House, thus referred

to the excellent result of even these small measures, and at the same

time enunciated a pregnant political truth. After alluding to the

increased prosperity and resources of the country, and to some measures

for decreasing the sale of spirits, he observes: ‘Satisfied, however,

that those resources and that prosperity _cannot be permanent without

an effectual attention to the sobriety of the people, their morals and

peaceable subordination to the laws_, they have, by an arrangement of

duties which promises also an increase of revenue, relieved the brewing

[trade] from all restriction of taxes, so as to give it a decided

advantage over the distilling, and thereby discourage the too frequent

and immoderate use of spirituous liquors, _a measure which must conduce

to sobriety, tranquillity, and content_, and under which the people,

encouraged in regular industry, and the consequent acquisition of

wealth, must feel the blessings,’ &c., of good government.

Under the dark days that followed, from 1795 to 1800--days of rebellion

at home and revolution abroad--_this_ subject was lost sight of,

unhappily for the interests of all. The Acts which had initiated so

much good, were allowed to expire, discouragement to the use of spirits

ceased, grocers were again allowed to dispense the drug to women and

families, and debauchery rioted and revelled as before.[229]

In 1796, among the next taxes introduced, was an additional duty of

twenty pounds per butt on wine. Discontent ensued. Pitt’s alleged

propensity furnished the material for satire. Gillray represented him

under the character of Bacchus, and his friend Dundas under that of

Silenus, in a caricature entitled _The Wine Duty, or the Triumph of

Bacchus and Silenus_. John Bull, with empty bottle and empty purse, and

with long face, addresses his remonstrance: ‘Pray, Mr. Bacchus, have

a bit of consideration for old John; you know as how I’ve emptied my

purse already for you, and it’s woundedly hard to raise the price of a

drop of comfort, now that one’s got no money left for to pay for it!’

Among the taxes of 1799 was one upon beer, which would have the effect

of raising the price of porter to fourpence the pot, and which would

most affect the working classes. The Tory satirists pretended to

sympathise most with the Whig Dr. Parr, a great porter drinker. Gillray

published a sketch of the supposed _Effusions of a Pot of Porter_, or

‘ministerial conjurations for supporting the war, as lately discovered

by Dr. P----r, in the froth and fumes of his favourite beverage.’ A

pot of four-penny is placed on a stool, from the froth of which arises

Pitt, mounted on the white horse, brandishing a flaming sword. The

Doctor’s reverie is a satire on the innumerable mischiefs which popular

clamour laid to the charge of the Minister:--

Fourpence a pot for porter! Mercy upon us! Ah! it’s all owing

to the war, &c. Have not they ruined the harvest? Have not they

blighted all the hops?

Wine was manufactured in England at this period. Sir Richard Worsley

tried the experiment of an _English vineyard_. He planted the most

hardy species of vine in a rocky soil at St. Lawrence, Isle of Wight,

and engaged a French vine-dresser. He achieved a success, but only

temporary. He abandoned the project. A certain Mr. Hamilton attempted

the same at Painshill, on a soil of gravelly sand. His first attempt

at red wine failed. He then turned his attention to white wine, in

which he tells Sir E. Barry, the experiment surpassed his most sanguine

expectations. Many good judges thought it better than any champagne

they had ever drunk. Such an experience was certainly exceptional.

Faulkner (_Antiquities of Kensington_) quotes the following memorandum

from the MS. notes of Peter Collinson:--

_October 18, 1765._--I went to see Mr. Roger’s vineyards at

Parson’s Green [at Fulham], all of Burgundy grapes, and seemingly

all perfectly ripe; I did not see a green, half-ripe grape in

all this quantity. He does not expect to make less than fourteen

hogsheads of wine. The branches and fruit are remarkably large, and

the wine very strong.

George IV. was born in 1770, and came to the throne in 1820.

Intemperance, amidst other vices, was a feature of his moral career.

The surroundings of his birth augured ill. Mrs. Draper, who attended

the Queen with her two first children, was dismissed from her duties in

consequence of her habitual inebriety. His proclivity very nearly cost

him dear while yet a youth. At a dinner party at Lord Chesterfield’s

house at Blackheath, the whole company drank to excess, and betook

themselves to riotous frolic. One of the party let loose a big fierce

dog, which at once flew at one of the footmen, tore one of his arms

terribly, and nearly strangled a horse. The whole party now formed

themselves into a compact body and assailed Towzer, who resolutely

defended himself, and had just caught hold of the skirts of the coat

of his Royal Highness, when one of the party by a blow on the head

felled the dog to the ground. In the confusion, however, the Earl of

Chesterfield fell down the steps leading to his house, and severely

injured the back of his head. The Prince, who scarcely knew whether he

had been fighting a dog or a man, jumped into his phaeton, and there

fell asleep, leaving the reins to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland,

who took him safely to town.[230]

The Prince was a member of the Catch and Glee Club at the Thatched

House Tavern. He is (says Huish) the reputed author of the second

verse to the glee of the _Happy Fellow_, ‘I’ll ne’er,’ &c.; and of the

additional verse to the song, ‘By the gaily circling glass,’ which he

used to sing in his convivial moments with great effect. Nothing more

distinctly points to the ineradicable nature of his diseased habit,

than his conduct upon the arrival of his bride-elect--Caroline of

Brunswick. Lord Malmesbury, the sole witness, tells the story:--

I ... introduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly

attempted to kneel to him. He raised her (gracefully enough) and

embraced her, said barely one word, turned round, retired to a

distant part of the apartment, and, calling me to him, said:

‘Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.’ I said:

‘Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?’ upon which he,

much out of humour, said with an oath: ‘_No_; I will go directly to

the Queen.’

The remark of the princess to Malmesbury, was: ‘Mon Dieu, est-ce que le

Prince est toujours comme cela?’

Lord Holland has stated that at the wedding the Prince had drunk so

much brandy, that he could scarcely be kept upright between two dukes.

The reckless extravagance of the Prince involved him in pecuniary

straights:--

Not a farthing could be raised on the responsibility of any of

his immediate associates; the whole of the party were actually in

a state of the deepest poverty; and Major Hanger, in the history

of his life, mentions a circumstance in which he, Sheridan, Fox,

_an illustrious individual_, and a Mr. Berkeley, repaired to a

celebrated tavern then known by the name of the Staffordshire

Arms, where after carousing with some dashing Cyprians who were

sent for on the occasion, the combined resources of the whole of

the party could not defray the expenses of the evening. On this

occasion, Sheridan got so intoxicated that he was put to bed, and

on awakening in the morning, he found himself in the character of a

hostage for the expenses of the previous night’s debauch.[231]

It must, however, be admitted, that when once upon the throne, he had

the rare capability of uniting dignity with hilarity. An incident in

connection with a public _toast_ is worthy of narration. When the

King visited Scotland, a banquet was given by the Lord Provost of

Edinburgh in the Parliament House. The King, in returning thanks for

the reception given him, said:--

I take this opportunity, my Lords and Gentlemen, of proposing the

health of the Lord Provost, _Sir_ William Arbuthnot, _Baronet_, and

the Corporation of Edinburgh.

Thus did the King confer the baronetcy upon the president. A

complication of disease terminated his reign in 1880.

The Public-house Regulation Act of 1758 was in force till 1828, when

a consolidating Act was passed, with an appeal to justices in quarter

sessions.

Its chief provisions are:--

1. Licences to be granted _only from year to year_, at a special

session of magistrates; with power of applicant to appeal to the

quarter sessions in case of refusal of licence: and the refusing

justices not to vote there.

2. Applicants for licence to affix notice of their intention of

applying, on the door of the house, and of the church of the parish

in which it is situated, for three prior Sundays, and serve a copy

on one of the overseers and one of the peace officers.

3. In case of actual or apprehended tumult, two justices may direct

the publican to close his house: disobedience to be esteemed as

disorder.

4. The licence stipulates that the publican shall not adulterate

his liquors, _or allow drunkenness, gaming, or disorder_; that he

shall not suffer persons of notoriously bad character to assemble

therein; and that he shall not, _save to travellers_, open his

house during Divine Service on Sundays and holy-days.

5. Heavy and increasing penalties for repeated offences against

the terms and tenor of the licence; magistrates at sessions being

empowered to punish an alehouse-keeper, convicted by a jury of a

third offence, by a fine of 100_l._, or to adjudge the licence to

be forfeited.

The Distillery Act of 1825 requires notice.

By the enactment of 1825, no person can obtain a _licence_ for

conducting a distillery, unless he occupies a tenement of the value

of 20_l._ a year, pays parish rates, and resides within a quarter

of a mile of a market town containing 500 inhabited houses. Before

obtaining a licence, the amount of which is 10_l._, he must lodge with

the collector, or other officer of excise, an entry or registry of his

premises, the several apartments and utensils, specifying the contents

of the vessels and the purposes for which they are intended; and every

such room and utensil must be properly labelled with its appropriate

name and object. With the registry must be delivered a drawing, or

description of the construction, use, and course of every fixed pipe

in the distillery, as well as of all casks and communications therewith

connected. Pipes for the conveyance of worts or wash must be painted

red, those for low wines or feints, blue; those for spirits, white;

for water, black. No still can be licensed of a less content than 400

gallons, nor can the distiller make spirits at the same time from

different materials. The distiller must give notice of the gravity at

which he intends to make his wort. These are specimens only of the

conditions imposed. Before this enactment, distillation was confined to

a few capitalists; but, with a view of encouraging a fair competition

in the trade, and inducing the people to take the spirits directly from

the distillers, the Act was passed.

The drink temperature was maintained throughout all classes of society.

Charles Knight gives an apt description of a Christmas in London in

1824:--

The out-door aspects of London enjoyment at Christmas were not

unobserved by me. Honestly to speak, it was a dismal spectacle.

In every broad thoroughfare, and in every close alley, there was

drunkenness abroad; not shamefaced drunkenness, creeping in maudlin

helplessness to its home by the side of the scolding wife, but

rampant, insolent, outrageous drunkenness. No decent woman even in

broad daylight could at the holiday seasons dare to walk alone in

the Strand or Pall Mall.

The stronger spirituous liquors were all the rage; and it was under

the impression that by making beer, &c., more readily accessible,

there would be less demand for the fire-water, that the Beerhouse Act

was passed, of which we shall soon speak. But before doing so, let us

recall the names of one or two who ranged themselves on the side of

temperance.

James Montgomery writes:--

Many might be profited by the resolute perusal of the ‘Confessions

of an Opium Eater’ with self-application, for every habitual

indulgence of appetite beyond what nature requires or will endure

for the health of body or mind is a species of opium-eating. Such

cordials, exhilaratives, and stimulants are generally, in the

first instance, resorted to as lenitives of pain, reliefs from

languor, or resources in idleness; they soon become necessary

gratifications, affording little either of pleasure or of pain

in the use (though non-indulgence is misery) till in the sequel

they grow into tyrannous excesses that exhaust the animal spirits,

debilitate the mind, and consume the frame with disease which no

medicine can reach. The drunkard in this sense is an opium-eater;

he puts an ‘enemy into his mouth that steals away his senses,’ and

the fool’s paradise, into which liquor transports him, lies on

‘the broad way that leadeth to destruction.’ The snuff taker and

the tobacco smoker in this sense are opium-eaters; these luxuries,

as well as eating and drinking, may be enjoyed in moderation,

but where does moderation end and abuse begin? That fine line of

distinction was never yet traced with assurance, and the only

safety lies many a league on the right side of it. The Indian weed

may be less promptly deleterious than the Asiatic, but in this

country it is scarcely a question that the former destroys more

victims than the latter.

Sydney Smith writes thus to Lady Holland, in 1828:--

Many thanks for your kind anxiety respecting my health. I not

only was never better, but never half so well; indeed, I find I

have been very ill all my life, without knowing it. Let me state

some of the goods arising from abstaining from all fermented

liquors. First, sweet sleep; having never known what sweet sleep

was, I sleep like a baby or a plough-boy. If I wake, no needless

terrors, no black visions of life, but pleasing hopes and pleasing

recollections: Holland House, past and to come! If I dream, it is

not of lions and tigers, but of Easter dues and tithes. Secondly, I

can take longer walks, and make greater exertions, without fatigue.

My understanding is improved, and I comprehend political economy,

I see better without wine and spectacles than when I used both.

Only one evil ensues from it: I am in such extravagant spirits

that I must lose blood, or look out for some one who will bore or

depress me. Pray leave off wine:--the stomach is quite at rest; no

heartburn, no pain, no distention.

In 1824 Carolina Nairne, _née_ Carolina Oliphant, became Baroness

Nairne, her husband, Major Nairne, being restored to a barony granted

to his family in the time of Charles I.

She appears to be the first writer of a thorough teetotal song. It was

entitled _Haud ye frae the cogie_.

There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen,

There’s custocks in Stra’bogie;

And morn and e’en they’re blythe and bein

That haud them frae the cogie.

Now haud ye frae the cogie, lads:

Oh, bide ye frae the cogie!

I’ll tell ye true, ye’ll never rue

O’ passin by the cogie.

Young Will was braw and weel put on,

Sae blythe was he and vogie;

And he got bonnie Mary Don,

The flower o’ a’ Stra’bogie.

Wha wad ha’e thocht at wooin’ time,

He’d e’er forsaken Mary,

And ta’en him to the tipplin’ trade

Wi’ boozin’ Rob and Harry?

Sair Mary wrought, sair Mary grat,

She scarce could lift the ladle;

Wi’ pithless feet, ‘tween ilka greet,

She’d rock the borrow’d cradle.

Her weddin’ plenishin’ was gane--

She never thocht to borrow;

Her bonnie face was waxin’ wan--

And Will wrought a’ the sorrow.

He’s reelin’ hame ae winter’s nicht,

Some later than the gloamin’;

He’s ta’en the rig, he’s missed the brig,

And Bogie’s o’er him foamin’.

Wi’ broken banes, out ower the stanes,

He creepit up Stra’bogie,

And a’ the nicht he prayed wi’ micht

To keep him frae the cogie.

Now Mary’s heart is light again--

She’s neither sick nor silly;

For auld or young, nae sinfu’ tongue

Could e’er entice her Willie;

And aye her sang through Bogie rang--

‘O haud ye frae the cogie;

The weary gill’s the sairest ill

On braes o’ fair Stra’bogie.’

King William IV. (1830-1837) rigidly practised temperance. Indeed he

zealously promoted it before his accession to the throne. One incident

may serve as an illustration. On the death of the keeper of Bushy Park,

the King, then Duke of Clarence, appointed the keeper’s son to succeed

him. This young man broke his leg, a circumstance which elicited the

practical sympathy of the Duke. After his recovery, the young man took

to drinking; so the Duke, in order to cure him of the propensity,

required his attendance every night at eight o’clock, and if he

appeared in liquor reprimanded him the following morning. But all to no

purpose. The infatuated keeper died from the effects of intemperance.

The King however was fond of giving _toasts_ after dinner, when his

prosy speeches were notorious.

The following specimen of toasts at a public banquet is taken from that

given on the occasion of the opening of London Bridge.

As soon as the royal visitors had concluded their repast, the Lord

Mayor rose, and said: ‘His most gracious Majesty has condescended

to permit me to propose a toast. I therefore do myself the high

honour to propose that we drink His Most Gracious Majesty’s Health,

with four times four.’ The company rose, and, after cheering him

in the most enthusiastic manner, sang the national anthem of ‘God

save the King.’ His Majesty bowed to all around, and appeared to be

much pleased.

Alderman Sir Claudius Hunter then rose, and said: ‘I am honoured

with the permission of his Majesty to propose a toast. I therefore

beg all his good subjects here assembled to rise, and to drink that

‘Health and every Blessing may attend Her Majesty the Queen.’’

Which was accordingly done, with the utmost enthusiasm.

The Lord Mayor then presented a gold cup, of great beauty, to

the King, who said, taking the cup: ‘I cannot but refer, on this

occasion, to the great work which has been accomplished by the

citizens of London. The City of London has been renowned for its

magnificent improvements, and we are now commemorating a most

extraordinary instance of their skill and talent. I shall propose

the source from whence this vast improvement sprung, ‘The Trade and

Commerce of the City of London.’’

The King then drank what is called the ‘loving cup,’ of which every

other member of the Royal Family present most cordially partook.

His Majesty next drank the health of the Lord Mayor and Lady

Mayoress, for which his lordship, in a few words, expressive of the

deepest gratitude, thanked his Majesty. The chief magistrate soon

after was created a Baronet.

Prominent amongst the legislative beacons of the present century is the

famous _Beer Act_ of 1830. Spirit drinking was terrible; a remedy was

sought; the expedient adopted was the Beer Act.

At the Middlesex Sessions, held on Thursday, January 21, 1830, Mr.

Serjeant Bell alluded to the increase of the consumption of gin as

a dreadful and horrible evil. A year ago there were 825 inmates in

the Middlesex Pauper Hospital, but now the number was between 1,100

and 1,200, the increase being mainly attributable to the practice of

gin drinking. Sir George Hampson said that the gin-shops were now

decorated and fitted up with small private doors, through which women

of the middle, and even above the middle classes of society, were

not ashamed to enter, and take their dram, when they found they could

do so unobserved. Sir Richard Birnie bore testimony to the dreadful

prevalence of drunkenness in the Metropolis: _there were 72 cases

brought to Bow Street on the Monday previous_, for absolute and beastly

drunkenness, and what was worse, _mostly women, who had been picked

up in the streets_, where they had fallen dead drunk: but while he

deplored the enormity of the evil, he declared that it was difficult to

find any remedy for it.

Hoping to do good by substituting beer for spirits, an Act was passed

in the 1st Will. IV., ‘to permit the general sale of beer and cider by

retail in England.’ The following are its main provisions:--

1. That any _householder_ desirous of selling malt-liquor, by

retail, in any house, may obtain an excise licence on payment of

two guineas, and for cider only, on paying one guinea.

2. That a list of such licences shall be kept at the Excise office,

open to the inspection of the magistrates.

3. That the applicant must give a bond, and find surety for the

payment of penalties incurred.

4. Penalty for vending wine and spirits, 20_l._

5. In case of riot, magistrates can command the closing of the

houses.

6. Penalties for disorderly conducting of the house.

7. Not to open before four A.M., and to close at ten P.M., and

during Divine Service on Sundays and holy-days.

How did it work? How did it operate upon the consumption (1) of beer,

(2) of spirits? During the ten years preceding the passing of the

Beerhouse Act, the quantity of malt used for brewing was 268,139,389

bushels: during the ten years immediately succeeding, the quantity

was 344,143,550 bushels, showing an increase of 28 per cent. During

the ten years 1821-1830, the quantity of British spirits consumed was

57,970,963 gallons, and during the next ten years it rose to 76,797,365

gallons, an increase of 32 per cent. All this clearly proved that the

increased facilities for getting beer created a greater demand for

spirits. During the year following the Act, more than 30,000 beer-shops

were opened in England and Wales. In Sheffield, as one instance, 300

beer-shops were added to the old complement of public-houses; and it

is especially to be noted that before the second year had transpired,

110 of the keepers of these houses had applied for _spirit_ licences to

satisfy the desire for ardent drinks.

On the motion of the Marquis of Chandos, April 18, 1833, it was

ordered in the House of Commons ‘That a select committee be appointed

to inquire into the state and management of houses in which beer is

sold by retail under the Act 1st Will. IV., cap. 64, commonly called

beer-shops, and with a view to making such alterations in the law as

may tend to their better regulation, and to report their observations,

together with their opinion thereon.’ Thirty-two members were appointed

as the committee, and April 22, ten others were added to it. The

committee sat April 24, 26, 30, May 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 20,

21, 22, 24. The witnesses examined were in number 59, among whom

were A. Magendie, late Assistant Poor Law Commissioner: A. Crowley

(brewer of Alton), magistrates, magistrates’ clerks, beer-sellers,

farmers and others. The Marquis of Chandos presided at most of the

sittings of the committee. The committee’s report, dated June 21, 1833,

contains fifteen resolutions, of which the first was:--‘That it is the

opinion of the committee from the evidence that has been adduced that

considerable evils have arisen from the present management and conduct

of beer-houses.’ The other resolutions expressed the committee’s

opinion that every applicant should produce a certificate of good

character signed by six rated inhabitants of the parish or township

(not beer-sellers)--the certificate to be signed by the overseer or

assistant overseer, as a proof that the six persons named were rated

inhabitants; that, besides other penalties, magistrates should be

able on a second conviction to suspend licences for two years or

less--a third offence to involve a disqualification for three years;

that beer-houses should be closed till half-past twelve on Sunday,

that the hours of keeping open at night should be extended in towns

and restricted in country districts; and in the last resolution the

committee ‘suggest the revisal of the system under which all beer and

spirit shops are licensed, and (without expressing a decisive opinion

on this extensive subject) your committee feel that very serious

reasons of justice and public advantage may be adduced in favour of the

assimilation of all the regulations as to hours and management to which

every description of house licensed to sell beer or spirituous liquors

by retail should be subjected.’ No legislation was superinduced upon

this report.[232]

In 1834 Mr. Buckingham moved ‘that a select committee be appointed to

inquire into the extent, causes, and consequences of the prevailing

vice of intoxication among the labouring classes of the United Kingdom,

in order to ascertain whether any legislative measures can be devised

to prevent the further spread of so great a national evil.’

This committee, composed of some of the most eminent members of

the House, including the late Sir Robert Peel, sat for upwards of

twenty-one days receiving evidence. The official report tendered a

number of recommendations for repressing the manufacture, importation,

and sale of alcoholic liquors, showing that this national disease of

drunkenness stood in need of sharp and speedy remedies; and that the

administration of these remedies was clearly within the province of the

Legislature.

The report is much too long for transcription; but the principles they

lay down are worthy of all acceptation.

(1) That the _right_ of legislative interference for the correction of

any evil which affects the public weal, cannot be questioned.

(2) That the _power_ to apply correction by legislative means cannot

be doubted, without supposing the better portion of the community

unable to control the excesses of the ignorant and disorderly, which

would be to declare our incapacity to maintain the first principles of

government by ensuring the public safety.

(3) That the _sound policy_ of applying legislative power to direct,

restrain, or punish the vicious propensities of the evil disposed,

cannot be disputed, without invalidating the right of government to

protect the innocent from the violence of the guilty, which would in

effect declare all government to be useless; an admission that would

undermine the very first principles of society.

Then follow what they propose as:--

_Immediate Remedies, Legislative and Moral._

The separation of the houses in which intoxicating drinks are sold

in four distinct classes. (1) Houses for the sale of beer only--not

to be consumed on the premises. (2) Houses for the sale of beer

only--to be consumed on the premises, and in which refreshments

of food may also be obtained. (3) Houses for the sale of spirits

only--not to be consumed on the premises. (4) Houses for the

accommodation of strangers and travellers, where bed and board may

be obtained, and in which spirits, wine, and beer may all be sold.

The limiting the number of such houses, of each class, in

proportion to population in towns, and to distances and population

in country districts: the licences for each to be annual, and

granted by magistrates and municipal authorities rather than by the

excise; to be chargeable with larger sums annually than are now

paid for them, especially for the sale of spirits; and the keepers

of such houses to be subject to progressively increasing fines for

disorderly conduct, and forfeiture of licence and closing up of the

houses for repeated offences.

The closing of all such houses at earlier hours than at present,

and for the most part uniformly with each other. The first and

second classes of houses, in which beer only is sold, to be closed

on Sunday, except for one hour, afternoon and evening; the third

class of houses, where spirits only are sold, to be entirely closed

all Sunday; and the fourth class, as inns or hotels, to be closed

to all visitors that day, save only travellers and inmates.

The making all retail spirit-shops as open to public view as

provision shops.

The refusal of retail spirit licences to all but those who would

engage to confine themselves exclusively to dealing in that

article: and consequently the _entire separation_ of the retail

sale of spirits _from groceries_, provisions, wine or beer, except

only in inns.

The discontinuance of all issues of ardent spirits (except

medicinal) to the navy and army, &c., and the substitution of

articles of wholesome nutriment. The abolition of all garrison and

barrack canteens, and the substitution of some other and better

mode of filling up the leisure of men confined within military

forts and lines: the opinions of most of the military officers

examined on this point by your Committee being that the drinking in

such canteens is the most fertile source of all insubordination,

crime, and consequent punishment inflicted on the men.

The withholding from the ships employed in the merchant service

the drawback granted to them on foreign spirits, by which they are

now enabled to ship their supplies of that article at a reduced

scale of duty, and are thus induced to take on board a greater

quantity than is necessary, to the increased danger of the property

embarked, and to the injury of the crew. The prohibition of the

practice of paying the wages of workmen at public-houses, or any

other place where intoxicating drinks are sold.

The providing for the payment of such wages to every individual his

exact amount, except when combined in families: so as to render

it unnecessary for men to frequent the public-houses, and spend a

portion of their earnings to obtain change.

The payment of wages at or before the breakfast hour in the

mornings of the principal market-day in each town, to enable the

wives or other providers of workmen to lay out their earnings in

necessary provisions at an early period of the market, instead of

risking its dissipation at night in the public-house.

The prohibition of the meetings of all friendly societies, sick

clubs, money clubs, masonic lodges, or any other permanent

associations of mutual benefit and relief at public-houses, or

places where intoxicating drinks are sold; as such institutions,

when not formed expressly for the benefit of such public-houses,

and when they are _bonâ fide_ associations of mutual help in the

time of need, can, with far more economy and much greater efficacy,

rent and occupy for their periodical meetings equally appropriate

rooms in other places.

The establishment, by the joint aid of the Government and the

local authorities and residents on the spot, of public walks, and

gardens, or open spaces for athletic and healthy exercises in the

open air, in the immediate vicinity of every town, of an extent,

and character adapted to its population; and of district and parish

libraries, museums, and reading rooms, accessible at the lowest

rate of charge; so as to admit of one or the other being visited

in any weather, and at any time; with the rigid exclusion of all

intoxicating drinks of every kind from all such places, whether in

the open air or closed.

The reduction of the duty on tea, coffee, and sugar, and all the

healthy and unintoxicating articles of drink in ordinary use; so

as to place within the reach of all classes the least injurious

beverages on much cheaper terms than the most destructive.

The encouragement of Temperance Societies in every town and village

of the kingdom, the only bond of association being a voluntary

engagement to abstain from the use of ardent spirits as a customary

drink, and to discourage, by precept and example, all habits of

intemperance in themselves and others.

The diffusion of sound information as to the extensive evils

produced to individuals and to the State, by the use of any

beverage that destroys the health, cripples the industry, and

poisons the morals of its victims.

The institution of every subordinate auxiliary means of promoting

the reformation of all such usages, courtesies, habits and customs

of the people, as lead to intemperate habits; more especially the

exclusion of ardent spirits from all places where large numbers

are congregated either for business or pleasure, and the changing

the current opinion of such spirits being wholesome and beneficial

(which the frequent practice of our offering them to those whom we

wish to please or reward so constantly fosters and prolongs) into

the opinion of their being a most pernicious evil, which should on

all occasions be avoided, as poisoner of the health, the morals,

and the peace of society.

The removal of all taxes on knowledge, and the extending every

facility to the widest spread of useful information to the humblest

classes of the community.

A national system of education, which should ensure the means of

instruction to all ranks and classes of the people, and which,

in addition to the various branches of requisite and appropriate

knowledge, should embrace, as an essential part of the instruction

given by it to every child in the kingdom, accurate information

as to the poisonous and invariably deleterious nature of ardent

spirits, as an article of diet, in any form or shape; and the

inculcation of a sense of shame at the crime of voluntarily

destroying, or thoughtlessly obscuring that faculty of reasoning,

and that consciousness of responsibility, which chiefly distinguish

man from the brute, and which his Almighty Maker, when He created

him in His own image, implanted in the human race to cultivate, to

improve, and to refine--and not to corrupt, to brutalise, and to

destroy.

_Ultimate or Prospective Remedies._

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:--

For government to offer encouragement to ale-houses, is to act the

part of a _felo de se_. Nor ought the public ever to be lulled

into an acquiescence by the flattering bait of immediate gain,

which ere long they would be obliged to _pay back to paupers, in

relief, with a heavy interest_.

Half a century before, the historian Smollett (v. 15) had remarked:--

After all it must be owned that the good and salutary effects of

the prohibition were visible in every part of the kingdom, and no

evil consequence ensued _except a diminution of the revenue_ in

this article [spirits], a consideration which ought at all times to

be sacrificed to the health and morals of the people.

And nearly half a century before Smollett, John Disney (magistrate and

divine) had written:--

I deny the assertion that the revenue of y^{e} crown will really be

impaired by prohibiting tipling & drunk^{ss}.... 3 parts in 4 of

the pore families in this kingdom have been reduced to want chiefly

by haunting Taverns or Ale-houses. Espec^{y} labouring men, who

very often consume there on the Lord’s day what they have gotten all

the week before, & let their families beg or steal for a subsistence

the week foll^{g}.... Now I suppose you will grant me that as the

No. of poor & ruined families encreases in a nation, the Prince that

governs must find a proportionable decay in his Revenue. On the

other side, all such laws duly executed as keep men by sobriety

temp^{ce} & frugality in a thriving condition, do most effectually

provide for the happiness of the people & for the riches of the

Prince.[252]

[Transcriber’s note: letters printed in ^{superscript} in the

original text are thus indicated.]

But there are symptoms of a decline in this source of revenue. A

leading London daily paper has lately thus adverted to this momentous

menace:--

Official statistics go far to confirm the triumphant claim of total

abstainers that the consumption of strong drink is falling off

at a rate not distasteful to the philanthropist, but suggesting

grave reflection to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. The receipts

from beer, wines, and spirits have been estimated in all recent

budgets at nearly thirty millions sterling a year, if we add to

the excise the customs duties derived from foreign spirits; and,

as this amount is considerably more than a third of the entire

revenue, any causes that impair its growth or make it decline

are of serious importance to the nation. That the revenue from

excise is not increasing, but is actually falling behind, despite

the change from a malt tax to a beer duty, is indisputable. That

temperance habits have made prodigious strides in the last few

years is also beyond question. Do the two changes stand to each

other in the relation of effect to cause? In other words, is

less of beer, spirits, wine consumed because there is a want of

inclination, or is it from want of ability? Partly from the latter

influence, there is little doubt. Total abstinence is popular

with many because it is an aid to health; with others because

it is the handmaid of morality and thrift; self-denying persons

practise it because it sets an excellent example; and multitudes

like it as it is economical.... In so far, then, as the need for

retrenchment is one cause of reduced consumption of strong drink,

a change in habit and in fashion might be expected to come with

increased material prosperity. The nation ‘drank itself out of the

Alabama difficulty’ in the exuberant days which saw Mr. Lowe at the

Exchequer; and it may yet again take to tippling so heartily as to

enable Mr. Childers to dispense with a portion of the income-tax.

At present, however, there is not the faintest symptom of this;

all the indications point in the other direction. Temperance and

total abstinence march from one conquest to another, blessed by

bishops, clergy, and even princes of the Christian Churches,

patronised by doctors, eulogised by hard-headed men of business,

and gathering in everywhere crowds of enthusiastic converts.

The movement is sweeping over the nation in an unchecked tide,

acquiring force as it goes, and inaugurating not change merely,

but social revolution.... Such changes, needless to repeat, bode

no good to the English Chancellor Exchequer, who has to sit idly

contemplating the gradual running dry of more than one tributary

rill, which he is at his wits’ end to replenish from other sources,

or to replace by a more reproductive substitute. Perhaps it is too

soon to moralise over the passing event, but it will be impossible

long to postpone action, and to rest content with mere discussion.

If the change we now witness is going to be permanent, that is, if

the crusade on behalf of abstinence from strong drink is to proceed

with redoubled success next year, Mr. Childers will not only he

unable to make any allowance for an elastic growth of the excise

receipts, but he will have to prepare for a diminution.

Had the coming event cast its shadow before? Isaac Disraeli long ago

predicted a _return_ to sobriety. We shall probably (said he) outlive

that custom of hard drinking, which was so long one of our national

vices.