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CHANGE OF DUTIES ON SPIRITS AND WINE.

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rise in the wages of many classes of operatives, together with the shortened hours of labour, giving to people so disposed, both more money and more time to drink, have neutralized any good which might have been hoped for from the slight restrictions which had taken place.

In 1860 there were also some changes made in the rates of duty, viz.:—

The duty on wine was reduced from 5s. 9d. per gallon to from 1s. to 2s. 11d., according to strength.

The duty on brandy was reduced from 15s. to 10s. 5d. per gallon.

The duty on rum was raised from 8s. 2d. to 10s. 2d.

And the duty on British spirits was raised from 8s. to 10s.

The number of houses licensed for the sale of ntoxicating liquors in 1869, as compared with 1859,

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* See Report of Commissioners of Inland Revenue for 1869, which is the most and only complete return I can find published. I have not in the above list included dealers in Sweets, or in other words, British Wines; if these were added, it would make it 10,215 more.

Comparing the ten years ending 1870 with the ten years ending 1860 the annual average consumption of intoxicating liquors in England and Wales was as

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During this period, the increase in the consumption of beer was over 20 per cent, of foreign spirits over 30 per cent, and of wine nearly 100 per cent. The increase in British spirits was not so great. The population of England and Wales in 1860 was 19,902,713, in 1870 it was 22,501,316, or an increase of about 13 per cent.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE UNRECOGNISED CRIME OF THE COUNTRY.

I HAVE given to this Chapter the above heading, because it very rarely happens, that writers or speakers ever recognise that there is any crime in the country outside the indictable lists which come before our Assize Courts and Quarter Sessions; but if the reader has been at the pains to peruse the preceding pages, he will have seen that there are two classes of courts which have to deal with the crime of the country, and that during the last fifty years there has been a constant change going on in regard to the punishment of crime, and, a constant transference of offences from the Assize Courts and Quarter Sessions, to the Petty Sessions.

Now, as has been shown, the transference of crime to the jurisdiction of Petty Sessions removes it from the list of crime which is called indictable; and hence, so far as the returns of crime are concerned, the offences tried in Petty Sessions are entirely ignored. It is true that since 1857 we have had

the police returns of crime-that is, the crime dealt with by the magistrates-as well as the returns of indictable crime; but writers and speakers continue so generally to quote the indictable list of crime, as > being the only crime of the country, overlooking the other, or speaking of the offences there registered as being too trivial to need concern-that non-indictable crime is virtually, if not actually, ignored.

Now, for the purposes of the point which I wish to illustrate, it would not matter if the assumption were admitted that the crime dealt with by the magistrates is of a trivial character, because, whatever be its character now, it was the same before it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the police court; but it then formed part of the indictable crime of the country, and the criminal lists were swelled by recording offences that now are not included.

I wish to make this point quite clear. I wish the reader to bear in mind that to steal a couple of gold watches, to embezzle £400 or £500, to rob an employer, to plunder somebody's shop, or to kick your neighbour or your wife nearly to death, is as much crime now as it was fifty years ago. The mitigation of the punishment does not make the

CHANGES OF JURISDICTION.

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act less criminal, and to ignore these crimes as if they had no existence is simply absurd. On the same principle we may readily stamp out the whole crime of the country; for all that is necessary in order to do this is, to transfer it to the jurisdiction of the magistrates.; it then disappears from the indictable list of crimes, and, on the principle of the logic I am combating, it ceases to be crime.

I have said that the returns of crime, adjudicated upon by the magistrates, were not published before 1857, and for the first year or two of their publication, they were somewhat incomplete. I will therefore take the returns of crime dealt with by the magistrates for the years 1859 and 1860, and compare them with 1873 and 1874. This comparison will enable the reader to see, first, the unregistered crime of the country, and, secondly, to compare the growth of this class of crime from 1860 to 1874. The offences given in the table are only those which are of a personal and criminal character-such offences as have to do with nuisances, Highway Acts, &c., are not taken into account, though many of these would have no existence but for the neglect, poverty, and recklessness, induced by intemperance.

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