pre-conceived (1039). In his own experience he has known several prisoners in gaol who, after they have been sentenced and convicted, have told him where all their plans were arranged, and those beerhorses were generally the places' (1074). And this is confirmed by the Head-Constable of the borough, who returns the number of beerhouses at which thieves assemble at 32, and at which thieves assemble and dispose of the proceeds of their robberies at 57.'

"The Rev. JOHN CLAY, who for 32 years has been chaplain of the Preston House of Correction, and has labored incessantly in reforming criminals, and tracing the courses of crime, states, that at least 35 per cent of crime must be set down as the direct effect of drinking in beerhouses and public-houses (6016); and he further gives as the result of his experience, that prisoners, after their discharge, if they only keep sober, keep out of prison' (6327). This return to crime, as the result of drunkenness, is also referred to by Mr THOMAS WRIGHT, who states that a child let loose from prison will return to bad habits unless he is removed from his parents.' (2140).

"Your Committee do not feel it necessary to follow further the evidence upon the connexion of intoxicating drinks with crime; it has, directly or indirectly, been the subject of enquiry at different times, and has been reported upon by numerous Committees of Your Honorable 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 evidence already referred to (and which, coming from persons of such ample experience, is entitled to especial weight) goes farther, and tends to establish that whatever individual propensity there may be to crime, is, with few exceptions, brought into activity by habits of intemperance; that children are driven forth to crime, to feed an appetite for drink that bears no control and knows no natural affection, and that even criminals cease from crime if they cease to be drunken. With regard, however, to that portion of the question more particularly belonging to the enquiry of your Committee, the necessity for a more efficient control of all places for the sale of intoxicating drinks, there arises no such difficulty. The entire evidence tends to establish that it is essential that the sale of intoxicating drinks shall be under strict supervision and control.

"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.

"In Manchester, an enquiry conducted with great care, extending over six successive Sundays, and including 159 spirit vaults, 256 public-houses, 1041 beerhouses, gave as the average number of visits on Sunday to the 1456 houses, 119,533 men, 70,478 women, and 22,232 children; a total of 212,243.”

The Deputy-Governor of WINCHESTER GAOL states that "he has been upwards of seven years in his present situation, during which period more than 11,000 prisoners had been committed to his care; and he feels no hesitation in saying that 17 out of every 20 had been brought there, directly or indirectly, through drink. On one single day lately, 11 persons were committed to the gaol, whose offences, without exception, were the result of drinking."*

§ 128. The following testimonies are taken from the Lords' Report on Beerhouses; being selections from 44 to the same purport

Rev. H. S. JOSEPH, Chaplain of Chester Gaol, says :-" Gaols must continue to be filled with prisoners, unless something be done to put down jerry-shops.”

Rev. J. ROWLEY, Chaplain of Lancaster Gaol :-"Is of opinion, formed deliberately and from long experience, that beerhouses are the promoters of crime."

Rev. W. Fox, Chaplain of Leicester Gaol :—“Is enabled to say, from seven years' experience, that the operation of publichouses and beerhouses, in the production of crime, is beyond any other instrumentality."

Rev. HENRY HALES, Chaplain of Ipswich Gaol :-"Crimes generally, if not invariably, originate in the frequenting of beerhouses; and, as corroborative of this, fifteen out of twenty men have so confessed during their imprisonment."

The 31st Report of the Chaplain of the Preston House of Correction (Rev. JOHN CLAY), under date of October, 1855, has the following very valuable testimony as to the extent of drunkenness and its numerical relations to crime :

"It is sometimes contended that Ignorance and Drunkenness are less prevalent now than formerly; that both are retreating before the steady advance of education. The retreat is so slow, that it can scarcely be measured, except after a long interval of time.

"I would note the fact, that during two years, I have heard 1,126 male prisoners attribute their offences-frauds, larcenies, robberies, burglaries, rapes, stabbings, homicides-TO DRINK! And if every prisoner's habits and history were fully enquired into, it would be placed beyond all doubt, that NINE-TENTHS of the English crime requiring to be dealt with by the law, arises from the English sin, which the same law scarcely discourages.

"I have never yet conversed with a single prisoner who attributed his ruin to the gaming-table; but I have heard more than 15,000 prisoners declare that the enticements of the ale and beerhouses had been their ruin.

"Through the kindness of the Clerk of the Crown, I have looked over the depositions relating to those charges of darker character which were tried at the assizes for the county in the year ending March, 1854. The following is a brief summary of the offences charged, and of the causes which led to them, in the cases of 380 prisoners:

:

The Weekly Record, Aug. 2, 1856, p. 151.

"Are these figures to be passed over as dry and repulsive statistics? Surely not. When murders, manslaughters, stabbings, shootings, rapes, burglaries, and such like,' to the number of 250 in one year and county, are traceable, directly, to acts of drunkenness, or more indirectly, but no less certainly, to habits of drunkenness, Christian feeling must indeed be dormant if it is not moved to deep sorrow for the crimes, and roused into determination to abate the cause of them. But I fear that no such determination will, for a long time to come, be of any avail. Warning and remonstrance will be heard from the bench and from the pulpit, from the workhouse and from the madhouse, and from the condemned cell, in vain. For a powerful interest insists upon its right to profit by-to live uponthe degradation and misery of the people; and against that interest, the interests of morality, and of the Christian religion, of mental and material progress, of social and domestic peace, will plead in vain."

§ 129. Let us now turn to the evidence of prisoners themselves. (§ 96). Look into the 12th Report of the Inspectors of Prisons for Scotland, and you will find (substituting numbers for names) the following:

No. 140. "He is in for theft; his sentence is 60 days' imprisonment; he was a farm servant; he attended the Dean Street Sabbath School for six years." Such is his history, and we have three questions to ask him. "1-What do you assign as the cause of your falling into error? "Answer.-Drink.

"2.-What do you think would be the effect, if the number of publichouses were reduced?

"Answer. If I had to go a mile for it, I should often go without it. "3.-What is your opinion of the custom of having the grocer's shop with public-house united?

"Answer.-Bad; frequently when a woman goes into one of these groceries, she gets a dram, which is marked provisions."

Now call in No. 142. "He is in for being disorderly; his sentence is 60

days; he has been three years at school, and one year at the Greyfriars' Sabbath school; he was a laborer." Such is his history, and these are his

answers:

"1.-What do you assign as the cause of your first falling into error? "Answer.-Drink.

"2.-What do you think would be the effect, if the number of publichouses were reduced?

"Answer.-If there were none, there would be less drunkenness and less

crime.

"3. What is your opinion of having the grocers' shop with public-house united?

"Answer. Very bad; there is temptation in them."

The crime of No. 146 is assault; his sentence is 21 days imprison. ment; he has been two years at a day and Sabbath-school in the Castle Wynd; he is by trade a hawker,' and here follow his answers :

"What do you assign as the cause of your first falling into error?

"Answer.-Drink.

"What do you think would be the effect if the number of public-houses were reduced?

"Answer. It would be much better not to license houses to sell drink, than to put people in prison for getting drunk."

The Prison Reports for England are full of similar answersthe all but invariable confession is, 'drink, drink.'*

§ 130. Mr FREDERIC HILL, late Inspector of Prisons, says :—

"That I am within the truth when I state, as the result of extensive and minute enquiry, that in four cases out of five, when an offence has been committed, intoxicating drink has been one of the causes.

"Nothing serves more to explain the good conduct of prisoners (and, under tolerable management, prisoners are, in fact, generally well-behaved and often even affectionate) than their complete withdrawal from the excitement and temptation of intoxicating liquors. Removed from these, they become different men, and are no more deserving the epithets which are often applied to them, than a person who has ceased to be in a passion merits the name of a madman."+

In the twelfth report on Prisons (Scotland), the Governor of the Edinburgh Prison, thus writes :—

"Upwards of 60 per cent of the whole number of offenders committed to prison in this year, included in the return, had their residence in the High Street, Canongate, Lawnmarket, Castlehill, Netherbow, Cowgate, Grassmarket, Westport, and Candlemaker Row, with the closes and wynds adjoining these places respectively; and it will be further seen from this

* On Saturday, the 4th of August, 1855,one Joseph Meadows, a young man of 25 years, was hanged in Worcestershire, for the diabolical murder of a respectable girl, only 17 years old, whose parents had refused to allow him to keep company with her! He shot her through the head, poor soul, and looking at her corpse, exclaimed, in the presence of two witnesses, 'I've had my revenge, and 'I've heard say revenge is sweet, and now I'm satisfied. I was determined that if 'I did not have her, no one else should.' But a few hours before his death, he wrote a humble and penitential letter to the bereaved parents of his young victim, of which the following is the concluding sentence:-'I hope and trust it will be a warning to those that are given to lead a wicked and rebellious life, like I 'did, until that time. Had I not led that life, it never would have happened; not that I upbraid any of you for it; it is merely to show you all what drink <brings on.'

+ For further testimony, see Twelfth Report on Prisons, 1848.

table, that of the offences committed in the city and suburbs of Edinburgh, upwards of 73 per cent were committed by persons residing in these localities; and it is a striking and significant fact, although not appearing from the return and tables, that although the localities referred to are by far the poorest parts of the city, and comprehend but a small part of it geographically, vet in these localities, where upwards of 73 per cent of the crimes are committed, more than 50 per cent of the spirit licences are held. And it may be safely assumed, that not less than 60 per cent of the drinkinghouses, properly so-called, are in these very localities. THIS CERTAINLY

SHOWS THE CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WHICH OBTAINS BETWEEN DRINKINGHOUSES, POVERTY, AND CRIME."

On another occasion, the same gentleman makes this remark :"Build a church and penitentiary in every street, with all the means and appliances on the side of religion and virtue, and allow a dram shop to be opened every second or third door, with all its means and appliances towards vice and crime, and the result will be that, seconded by the inherent depravity of our nature, criminals of all sorts will be produced much faster than they can be reclaimed."

§ 131. Lastly, we present the testimony of our three classes of Justices the MAGISTRATES, RECORDERS, and JUDGES OF ASSIZE The Grand Jury, for Lancashire, composed of twenty-one Magistrates, at the Liverpool Summer Assizes for 1840, through Mr W. ENTWISTLE, M.P., their foreman, said :—

"The Grand Jury having concluded their examination of the cases submitted to them, feel it their imperative duty to place on record their opinion, as to the prevalent habit of drunkenness, so forcibly alluded to in the charge delivered to them by Mr JUSTICE WIGHTMAN, as being the cause of at least four-fifths of the offences comprized in this, and in almost all other calendars, as well as with regard to the best and most efficient means that can be adopted towards the extinction of that degrading practice." (§ 133.)

The Shrewsbury Chronicle, in 1847, contained the following interesting account of the Report of the Magistrates at the Quarter Sessions; and of their enlightened opinions :

"The VISITING JUSTICES beg particularly to call the attention of the Court to the Report of the Chaplain, and especially to that part relative to the previous intemperate habits of the majority of the prisoners. In reference to the causes of their confinement, the chaplain found that it was drunkenness; for out of the 601, only 23, and they consisted chiefly of children under 15, were of sober habits. Every pains were taken with the prisoners, but notwithstanding, there were more than one-third, or 225 out of 601 prisoners, re-committals."

"Sir BALDWIN LEIGHTON said, if the Chaplain had not taken such great pains in classifying the prisoners, one could hardly suppose there was such a vast number committed for drunkenness; indeed, he might say. that drunkenness was the cause, immediate or remote, of the committal of every prisoner who was sent to gaol. Perhaps it was impossible for that Court to do a great deal to check the vice of drunkenness; that must, he believed, rest in a great measure with the farmers of this county; he believed that they could do much more by withdrawing facilities, than either the magistrates or the clergy. He believed that from a very false notion, the farmers imagined that the greater was the consumption of barley, the greater would be their profit. He had no doubt had Father MATHEW Come amongst them, they would have had, by this time, a much greater sum saved by temperance than they could realize by the sale of barley.