"The Court assembled on Tuesday at ten o'clock, for the purpose of hearing appeals and trying prisoners. The Hon. THOMAS KENYON, chair man, in delivering his charge to the Grand Jury, regretted to find that most of the crimes now committed were attributable to drunkenness; and to that cause solely was to be attributed the one-half of the county expenditure for prosecutions." (See § 112.)

66

Mr ROBERTSON GLADSTONE, brother to the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a borough magistrate of Liverpool, said before Mr C. VILLIERS's committee (1194) :-"I believe some people entertain the idea, that you have no right to select the "Licensed Victuallers' business for the imposition of a tax, "because it is a trade, and trade should be free. Now, I do not "think the Licensed Victuallers can fairly be placed in that 46 category. We are now obliged to maintain a police force of "something like 900 strong, and we are at this moment paying "from the Borough funds, the property of the Corporation, 66 something like £100,000, for the erection of a new gaol ;* and "I contend that we should not have to incur so large an expense 66 on account of the Police force, nor should we at this moment "have been put to the necessity of erecting a new gaol, if it were not for the existence of the licensed public-houses and the "beerhouses. I believe they are the source of ALL the mischief, and, I believe [if his proposal to reduce them one-half by a "high-licence duty were acted on], instead of a police force 900 strong, something like one-half the number would be ample

66

66

66

*We learn from the Manchester Examiner of September 6th, 1855, that that city is in the same predicament as Liverpool. "The Manchester City Goal was begun in 1846-7 for the accommodation of between 430 and 440 prisoners on the separate system. It was not long opened before it was found that the average number of male and female prisoners far exceeded the accommodation, and that Manchester had expended over £90,000 on a prison too small for the purpose. The dangerous classes increased in numbers, and this increase was often visible alongside a state of comparative commercial prosperity; as if to upbraid our confidence in the theory that crime must absolutely depend upon the pressure of physical wants."--But Manchester seems less fortunate in its Magistrates than Liverpoolits Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors want Mr GLADSTONE'S clear sightedness. They are astonished, and wonder' amazingly. In the City Council, Mr CorTRILL said "At such a ratio of increase, what would be the number they would have to provide for in four years hence? Education was now, and had been, on the increase, although all the different modes of education had not been adopted; yet, in spite of Sunday schools, public libraries, and other educational machinery, crime, while business was at a fair average amount, was on the increase. They could. not complain of trade, for it was on the increase; yet, notwithstanding this, and all the means of education, crime was also on the increase. There must really be something wrong in the system of punishment adopted."

'O lame and impotent conclusion!'

Mr Alderman NEILD said "With regard to the increase in criminals, no one could explain how that arose. Manchester gaol had increased in the number of its prisoners on a par with the New Bailey. In Liverpool there had been a slight diminution, but now there was an increase. In Kirkdale there was a slight increase. In Wakefield the increase was more than in Manchester, and in Knutsford also there was an increase."-Mr WILLIS, Chief Constable, says: "The returns of crime which I have the honor to present for the year 1854, exhibit, I am sorry to say, as compared with the returns of the previous year, an increase of 593 prisoners. It is difficult to offer any satisfactory explanation for the increase."-These worthies authorize drink-houses, and then wonder' at their effects. Let them, to begin with, try the Scotch plan, and have a sort of Sunday Maine Law.

"for every possible emergency that could occur"* (1171). I "think that extraordinary exertions are now made to induce 66 people to become drunkards" (1026). "The Licensed Vic"tuallers frequently attend to oppose the grant of fresh licences? 66 They like to keep the means of making people drunk in their own "hands."

§ 132. The RECORDERS and SHERIFFS completely accord with the Justices of the Peace.

Mr JOHN POYNDER, for three years Under-Sheriff of Middlesex, and Clerk for thirty years of Bridewell and Bethlehem hospitals, gives very explicit testimony before the Parlirmentary Committee of 1834:

"Having turned your attention to crimes arising from excessive drinking, are you prepared to state what proportion of such crimes bear to the whole mass of crime ?My general impression would be, that, both remotely and proximately, there is no such temptation to crime as is afforded by the drinking of spirituous iquors particularly; and by the drinking of beer to an improper extent.

"Then of all the causes, you think drunkenness is the greatest cause?—I am obliged to say, I think it is so.

"From your experience, are you of opinion that excessive drinking is the proximate cause of the majority of crimes perpetrated in the metropolis ?I apprehend it to be so.

See also Sheriff WIRE's testimony, the Solicitor to the Licensed Victuallers, § 29.

Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, F.R.S., Sheriff of Lanarkshire (1849), observes :-"I am decidedly of opinion that drunkenness is the cause of two-thirds of the crime, and one-half of the distress, existing among the working classes at this moment."

Dr SAMUEL WARREN, F.R.S., Recorder of Hull, at the Easter "Sessions for 1854, said :-"A dram shop has always appeared to 66 me, ever since I began to take an interest in criminal matters, 66 as simply the half way house to Norfolk Island or the Hulks." The same gentleman, at the sessions for 1855 (October 19th), addressed the following observations to the Grand Jury :—

"GENTLEMEN,-During the last two months, in a distant and happy solitude, I have had opportunities for reflection, and this subject [of crime] has been seldom absent from my thoughts; but I have nothing new to offer. All I can say is, that I see more clearly than ever-terribly clearlythe connexion between cause and effect, in crime; I can see it in the very act of hideous growth from the twin stems of Intemperance and Ignorance, which themselves take quick and deep root in the soil of man's corrupt heart. While we ought to be laying the axe to the root of the infernal tree, we content ourselves with snipping off leisurely a few of the uppermost leaves and twigs. Is not this merely child's work? idiot's work? May we not be guilty of impious trifling with an awful task set us by God? Do we forget who has told us, that men do not gather figs from thistles, nor grapes from thorns'? And thistles and thorns are in the hearts of the

*If they are the occasion of all the mischief, why stop with putting down one-half of them? We should vote for total and immediate abolition of all sources of evil.

best of us, unreclaimed by the grace of God. But how can it be otherwise with the little outcast of society, whom we suffer to grow up day by day, month by month, and year by year, into the ruffian, the robber, the burglar, the murderer,- that is now terrifying a society become helpless from its own weak and guilty apathy! We look on, almost with a horrid sort of interest, while the dog returns to his vomit, the sow to her wallowing in the mire! Of what avail are the mere accents of honied eloquence,-of sympathy and sorrow,-in dealing with such dreadful realities as these? They are mere 'Parmacitty for an inward bruise.'

Well, then, first of all, let us attack at once, and straining every nerve with a holy energy, the cause-which is to be found, as, alas! we too well know,-in Intemperance and Ignorance. No one doubts it: assent to the proposition is given with complacent readiness; but, alas!

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, 'Unless the deed go with it.'

Would that a holy crusade could be set on foot-a national movementagainst these two inveterate and deadly foes of mankind! I was never heard to speak a syllable with levity or disrespect of the temperance movement, as it is called; for, to me, the sight of a man, especially in humble life, who voluntarily abstains from a pleasure and an excitement which he has fouud to lead him far astray from virtue, peace, and happiness, is very noble and affecting, as an act of self-denial, which must be acceptable to Almighty God."

MATTHEW DAVENPORT HILL, ESQ., the Recorder of Birmingham, in his address to the Grand Jury of that town, January 5, 1855, spoke as follows :

:

"Those among you who bear in mind the charges which have been delivered from this bench, on the causes of crime, will naturally ask how it is that the enormous consumption of intoxicating liquors which prevails through the land- a source of crime not only more fertile than any other, but than all others added together-should have been hitherto passed by, or only have been brought under notice as incidental to some other topic. The subject has occupied my thoughts for years; strange indeed must have been the state of my mind if it had not forced itself on my attention, since the evils arising from the use of intoxicating drinks meet us at every turn. And for myself I cannot pass an hour in court without being reminded, by the transactions which are put in evidence before me, of the infinite ramifications of this fatal pest.......Crime, gentlemen, is the extreme link in the chain of vice forged by intemperance,-the last step in the dark descent, and thousands who stop short of criminality, yet suffer all the other miseries (and manifold they are) with which the demon Alcohol afflicts his victims!"

§ 133. It is a sad and an astounding fact, that 29,359 criminals were committed to prison, in England, last year (1854), exclusive of 70,000 committed in the petty courts, of which we have no accurate statistics. Can we adequately conceive of this evil? Ordinary readers glide, almost unaffected, over mere abstract or numerical statements of the most horrible calamities. "Four-fifths of this crime of England flows from the Traffic" is easily said-but is its meaning realized? By the Judge-yes; by the common reader-no. Let us now, by the aid of a Document given at p. 630 of the Report on Public Houses, endeavor to translate the numerical statement into the concrete reality. The following contains all the convictions under the category of crime named; there were besides two cases of acquittals as accidents :

COMMITTALS for Trial to the Lancaster Assizes, involving Charges of Violence against the Person, for the Year ending 15th May, 1853:

No. INITIALS.

ON WHAT CHARGE.

CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH THE
OFFENCE ORIGINATED.

{

Drinking in a beerhouse.

All the parties had been drinking together.

Cutting and wounding A beerhouse quarrel.

Stabbing his wife

M. W.

A. N.

Wilful murder

B. S. J. R. 6 C. K.

Manslaughter

Ditto

Ditto.

§ 134. The JUDGES OF ASSIZE, at home and abroad, have for centuries given but one persistent, honest testimony on this point (§ 48).

In the year 1623, the LORD-KEEPER COVENTRY, in his address to the Circuit Judges, declared that "the licensed alehouses are "the public stages of Drunkenness and Disorder."

Sir MATTHEW HALE, the ever to be venerated Chief Justice of England, in 1670, bore the following testimony:

"The places of judicature which I have long held in this "kingdom, have given me an opportunity to observe the original 86 cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for "the space of nearly twenty years; and, by due observation, I "have found that if the murders and manslaughters, the burgla"ries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, for"nications, rapes, and other enormities that have happened in "that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have been "the issues and product of excessive drinking, of tavern or "alehouse drinking."

No one, we presume, ever inverts the connexion asserted-no one dreams that men are first criminals, and then drinkers: everybody knows to a certainty that the criminal is first 'primed' and then hardened' by drink-that the quarrels take place

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over the cups, and not before them*-and that the abstemious criminal is a rare social phænomenon. "To the best of my belief," said Dr WARREN, in his charge to the Grand Jury at Hull, already cited, "No Temperance man ever stood at that "bar to receive judgment from this seat-in my time, at least; "while seven out of every ten criminals who have done so have "been brought there by intoxicating liquor. I have talked with 66 many of them afterwards in prison, and they have owned it "with tears of agony."

We have already had occasion to note (§ 24) that smuggling and illicit distillation, by offering popular facilities for drinking, invariably increase crime: as, contrarywise, the effectual suppression of these facilities, by means of moderate duties, and an active revenue service, is followed by a striking diminution of it. Ireland affords a sorrowful example. The baneful practice of private distillation, when introduced into the county Cavan, rapidly corrupted the simple manners and amiable characteristics of its moral population. The easy access to whisky was followed by a fearful profligacy of habits, both in males and females. Vices and crimes, before unknown, were of daily occurrence-chastity was flouted-the marriage pledge violatedand even infanticide became frequent.

Mr JUSTICE FLETCHER, in his charge to the Grand Jury in March, 1822, thus refers to the facts:

"When first I visited the town of Lifford, it did not afford as "much criminal business as would give employment to a Judge "for a single day ;-what is now the situation? There is not a "crime in the catalogue of the criminal law of which the "calendar of that county does not afford an example. Such is "the effect of illicit distillation." That is, of the use of the whisky, whose sale is promoted by the facilities of distillationwhether illicit or legalized.

LORD GILLIES, in 1832, directed the attention of the Sheriff and Magistrates of Glasgow, to the fact that there were not less than 1,300 Public-houses in the Royalty. "He could not but

"be sensible of the fact that the facilities thus afforded to the "indulgence of intemperate habits were the principal cause of the "crime that prevailed; he therefore directed their most serious "attention to the lessening of Public-houses."

The late JUDGE GURNEY declared that "almost every crime "has its origin, more or less, in drunkenness." Perhaps the correcter phrase would have been, 'the excitement of drinking.' JUDGE ERSKINE declared, at the Salisbury assizes, in 1844, when sentencing a gentleman to six months' hard labour, for a crime committed through strong drink, that "ninety-nine cases out of every hundred were from the same cause.

"Il a le vin mauvais."-French proverb. 'He quarrels in his cups.'

+ Charge of Judge Fletcher to the grand jury of county Cavan. Dublin, 1822. p. 6.