Here we perceive, in spite of Education and Religious Instruction plus, that 12 counties whose average Drink-facilities are 47 per cent above the mean, are in Crime also 19 above it; while, on the other hand, 12 counties that are 42 below the national mean of Drinking-houses, are, notwithstanding ignorance and neglect, 22 per cent under that of crime. As regards the repression of Crime, therefore, these facts show that Ignorance, conjoined with less drinking facilities, is much better than Knowledge and Religious Instruction conjoined with more. In other words, that Public-houses are more potent for evil than anything else for good. We may resume this topic in a sequel to the present 'argument': but, in the meantime, we place the FACTS before the reader. In § 167. "To the MAGISTRACY of this country, there not only belongs all the responsibility that wealth, rank, and intelligence involve, but there is superadded all the responsibilities of office. To them is committed the administration of the laws, not only for the 'punishment of evil doers,' but that they may check and control the sources of evil and crime. Such, for example, is the power which the Legislature has given them over the LICENSING OF HOUSES FOR THE SALE OF INTOXICATING DRINK. Their authority over these houses involves them in serious responsibility, which, we fear has never been sufficiently considered.* reference to the sources and occasions of intemperance, this discretionary power may be directed either in a beneficial or a baneful channel, in proportion as it is exerted to diminish or to multiply the means and temptations to the nation, of gratifying an unnatural and morbid thirst for intoxicating liquors, and by which they impart or withhold a public sanction to those opinions and practices with which intemperance and its concomitant vices are indentified. This discretionary power, then, ought to be employed in a manner most accordant with the original spirit and evident intention of the law, if good-or dealt with according to its tendency to promote or obstruct the great purposes of In a tract published in 1754, by STEPHEN HALES, D.D., clerk of the closet to the Prince of Wales, entitled "Friendly Admonitions to the Drinkers of Gin, Brandy, etc. With an humble representation of the necessities of restraining a vice so destructive of the Industry, Morals, Health, and Lives of the People."-Dr HALES observes-"It is matter of wonder, that an universal indignation is not raised against so destructive a Pest; for how is it possible for men that have any sense of humanity, any bowels of pity, but especially for those who profess themselves to be Christians, to stand by and see, unconcerned, so destroying a fire rage among their fellow-creatures, without exerting their utmost efforts to extinguish it? It is sure the duty of every man to set to his helping hand and oppose it to the utmost; but more especially those who have it in their power to KEEP UP THE FENCES against the encroachments of this terrible destroyer. For of all the miseries and plagues that unhappy man has been incident to, none was ever so effectually destructive as this; not even those three sore judgments--of war, pestilence, or famine; which after having raged for some time, cease. But this evil spirit is an unrelenting, merciless enemy, that threatens destruction from generation to generation..Now, since it is found by long experience extremely difficult for the unhappy habitual dram-drinkers to extricate themselves from this prevailing vice, so much the more it becomes the duty of the Governors of the Nations to withhold from them so irresistible a temptation." X social life-peace, virtue, and happiness. Now, what was the original end contemplated by the law in reference to the establishing and licensing of Public Houses? Simply, that they should be houses for innocent and necessary refreshment. "But what says the voice of impartial history? What, the varied, multiplied, and constantly renewing enactments of the Legislature? What says bitter experience? They all proclaim the fact, that these houses have totally reversed their original character, and become places where the unwary have been seduced, the strong tempted, and the weak ruined; in short, they have been transformed (by the gradual, but natural, operation of the intoxicating agent, to the sale of which they are now almost exclusively devoted) from houses of public refreshment and accommodation, into temples consecrated to sensuality and Bacchus. The abuse has become so common as almost to lose its power to startle. Men have worn off their sense of responsibility in this matter, and it is high time that they should be aroused from their sleep! The fact is seen and confessed; but its evil, its wickedness, is not felt. The eye sees, but the heart and the conscience are unmoved. Nevertheless, responsibility emains, and presses upon every individual. "If all men are bound to use their influence against this widespreading evil, how much more the Magistrates of the land, in whose power it is to abate the nuisance! Have these houses increased in number far beyond the reasonable requirements of public convenience? The Magistrates have power to reduce them indefinitely. Have Public-houses violated the laws enacted for their government? Are tippling and drunkenness, idleness and gaming, and many other vices, not only tolerated but encouraged in them? The Magistrates have power to refuse their licences and having this power, they are bound to use it. The sober, industrious, and intelligent of the community, look to them for protection against these evils. The appeal is made, and justly, from those who suffer to those who are able to prevent. Many Magistrates have already declared themselves favorable to the object of Temperance Societies; but the operations of these Societies are thwarted and contracted by the licensing of Public-houses. While, on the one hand, vast bodies of noble and patriotic Englishmen are devoting their energies to the suppression of intemperance, the Law and Magistracy of England are, on the other, licensing and increasing houses devoted to its promotion! He, therefore, who is a friend to the licensing of drinking-houses, is practically an enemy of Temperance: and no Magistrate, who is a member or a friend of the Temperance Society, can, consistently, sanction the licer zing system, since the tendencies of Temperance Societies and of Public-houses are the very opposites of each other."* From the British Temperance Advocate Supplement, June, 1839. Every Judge and Jailer and Prison Inspector throughout the ingdom has been telling us the § 168. Members of Temperance Societies, from their knowledge of the evil and their appreciation of its malignancy, may, above all others, be expected to hail the Alliance. They are the trained 'Ironsides' and 'Life-Guards' of the enterprize. As Citizens, they are competent to join us as Teetotalers, they should be our staunchest auxiliaries. Combined to put down Intemperance, they are virtually pledged to remove its chief cause. The Traffic not only creates new drunkards, while they are striving to reclaim old ones-it perpetually seduces and prostrates their willing but weak disciples. That the principles and policy of the Alliance are nothing new, is sufficiently evident from the preceding section-which is extracted from an Address to Magistrates which we published sixteen years ago. But that very fact teaches another truth of policy: it teaches the folly of reliance on mere talk, where Interest and Custom are entrenched in Law. We must storm that entrenchment; expel the enemy, and then build up a legal rampart against his return for ever. The "children of this world"-the Secularists-"are wiser in their generation" than those who should be "the children of light”— but are not always. We observed recently, in a scheme for a Secular Institute, wherein no religion is to be taught, the proposal to introduce in the Trust-Deeds a clause excluding all ministers of Religion from the management. Admirable policy— for the purpose. So the Temperance party should act in reference to their dogma: not only teaching and practising the truth of To-day, but refuse to License an Interest to teach and to tempt the people otherwise To-morrow. This is their 'material' guarantee for the future-the necessary condition of permanent success—since, in the long run, practical institutions of an antagonizing character, would be sure to overturn theoretical ideas, moral sentiments, and transient enthusiasms. Twenty years ago the Patriarch of your cause, JOSEPH LIVESEY, in his letter on the Beer Bill, insisted on the evil of the Licensed Houses. But what has been done? Twenty years practically lostbecause, as a party, your policy was not bold and grand enough. You trusted to moral suasion, and shunned political action. The shallow cry of extremes-the timid policy of 'Not so fast-not so much'-made much of your work end in little. We should have assailed as a body the whole system-should have ventilated (as we are now attempting) the entire Traffic-proving and proclaiming it to be what it is a social nuisance, and a moral wrong, calling for total and immediate abolition. This, and this alone, is the grand secret of the success of the demand for the Maine Law in the United States. It went straight to the hearts and old story' since that day. It was reserved for the Economist, sixteen years after, viz., in June 1856, to announce, on the authority of some shallow, confused, and imperfect statistics-that there is no material connexion between Drinkinghouses and Public-disorder! The best we can say of the Economist is, that it has lost its philosophy in its figures-and cannot see the wood for the trees. consciences of the people: it took fast hold of their moral will, because it appealed to their moral-sense. It proposed no distinction of 'respectable' and 'low-of few or many. It refused to whiten and garnish the sepulchre: to hoist over the Door of Temptation the emblazoned banner of Licence—to put upon the Traffic the sign and symbol of Law-to give to it the sacred imprimatur and sanction of the State. It said not to the mercenary man, "You may do wickedly, if you keep within bounds, and hide the corruption from the public gaze. It entered into no copartnery and compromise with a business that prospers by the creation of paupers and criminals, and makes three-fourths of the whole business of the Executive of Government itself. But it said, consistently and plainly, This thing is WRONG; and this wrong shall not be done, neither with the State's sanction, nor the State's cognizance. Thus it freed the Public Conscience of the Commonwealth from all share in temptations to drunkenness ; it cleared the State from that which defiled and degraded its subjects, as the Human Father would desire to exempt the Household from that which pollutes, or as Christ, with divine benignancy, cast out the unclean Spirits from the tormented dæmoniac. Peruse the History of the Movement in the United States, and profit by the lesson. Our interpretation of your position and prospects is that universally accepted in the parallel History of America. Says the Rev. Dr MARSH, the successor of EDWARDS in this Enterprize, in a recent sermon :— "Fourteen, even seventeen years ago, the minds of men in several of the States were fastened upon entire prohibition, as the only remedy for the evils of intemperance. And had it ripened and become the great principle of action, Oh, what a tide of blessedness would have rolled over the land! But at that moment the great Washingtonian reform arose. It was a mighty whirlwind of love-love for the poor drunkard; love for the drunkard-maker; love for the distiller and brewer. It discarded all law. It would reform the world by pure kindness. The hardened vender took refuge in its sanctuary. Only let him alone, and deal kindly with him, and he would abandon his business as soon as convenient. Then moral suasion took the throne to do its own work-and the work of another. Here was its great error, and the cause of its failure. AND IT WAS TEN LONG YEARS BEFORE WE REGAINED THE GROUND LOST. § 169. We have already pleaded for Women; on such a theme, it is hardly needful we should plead to her? She No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt She whose nature is made for intenser sympathy and deeper * TENNYSON's Princess. p. 174. |