CHAPTER IV.

"THAT NO CONSIDERATION OF PRIVATE GAIN, OR PUBLIC REVENUE, CAN JUSTIFY THE UPHOLDING OF a system so UTTERLY WRONG IN PRINCIPLE, SUICIDAL IN POLICY, AND DISASTROUS IN RESULT, AS THE TRAFFIC IN INTOXICATING LIQUORS."

§ 63. "It is never doubted that the greatest earthly curse is the Sin of intemperance. ."* What, then, must be the guilt of the soul, that, for private and venal ends, fosters and feeds a system which, in the nature of things, spreads and perpetuates that prodigious vice? We have already piled proof upon proof, and advanced testimony after testimony to the very verge of wearisomeness, in illustration of a fact so patent that all must feel itviz., that the Traffic in strong drink is a traffic in temptation and seduction, which evermore ends in the demoralization of the masses. As Mr VILLIERS, in his Report to Parliament, suggests, the direct ratio of crime is the direct ratio of the success of that trade-or, in other words, the measure of the prosperity of the Traffic is likewise the measure of the people's misery. We do not stop to discuss the varying degrees of moral and criminal indifference, or of conscious guilt, attaching to the characters of the Traders themselves ;-we do not care to distinguish the 'low' from the high,' or the £8 house from the £50, or £500, each adapted to its class ;-much less do we enter into any judgment of those intentions with which Publicans may be animated, or Perdition may be paved,—ours is a plainer and more solvable problem-namely, what is the tendency, and therefore character, of the Traffic as a whole, one and indivisible? By its fruits, we presume, like all other systems, it must be known if good, to be cherished; if evil, to be cut down. The evidence adduced before the Parliamentary Committee indeed, shows that the monster brewers, -the Barclays, Buxtons, Hanburies, and Meuxs-are the responsible creators of some of the worst incidents of the Traffic. We refer especially to that system of tyranny connected with tied houses'—a system which necessarily incites to those extended frauds of adulteration of which we hear so much, and to those discreditable artifices and varied temptations

This is the language of the Birmingham Journal of March 3, 1855, in its leader against the 'Alliance, after the defeat of the Publicans in the Town Hall.

to drinking whereof we hear too little. The higher the personat character of Capitalists may be, the more baneful is their influence when serving as a screen to the horrors of the process which they are carrying on-no matter whether that process is the breeding of slaves, or the setting up of beershops and taverns that besot and brutalize a people. If none but bad men carried on bad businesses, such trades would soon go out of fashion.*

§ 64. We summon our witnesses from the past and the present, from Bar and from Bench, from pulpit and from platform; from the busy town and the quiet hamlet; from the loom and the land; from the riot and revel of the Gin-palace and the enforced silence of the gaol.

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Dr OLIVER GOLDSMITH: "Alehouses are ever an occasion of debauchery and excess, and either in a political or religious light, it would be our highest interest to have them suppressed."+

ARTHUR YOUNG, F.R.S., Dublin: "It is an observation that has been repeated to me in every part of the kingdom, and such variety of instances given, all tending to the same result, that the fact is established beyond all controversy: Multiplied Alehouses are multiplied temptations.”‡

Rev. ROWLAND HILL: "Public-houses, the bane of the country, excite the strongest indignation in my mind."

A LEEDS BREWER: "I have had 30 years' experience among that body of men [Publicans], as brewer, maltster, hop, wine, and spirit merchant. I have frequently said it was wrong to be bound to sell such trash as the unprincipled part of the brewers and merchants force upon them. I have seen and heard of all sorts of crimes in these houses. The old licensed victuallers are no better, as a body, than the beersellers...If all public-houses were closed at 11 o'clock at night, it would answer all purposes [?] six days in the weck; and on Sunday from one to three, and from six to nine. A great number of honest, well-meaning men have to work, and go at night to take a glass, from eight to eleven. In consequence of those houses remaining open till three or four in the morning, they frequently stop till one, two, three,

"It is the capital of the Rich which surrounds men with temptation to selfmurder. The retailer takes shelter under the wholesale dealer, from whom he purchases the pernicious drought; and has he not a right so to do? Can we expect his conscience to be sensitive, when he treads in the steps of men of reputation? Of the character of those who vend spirits, I do not judge. They grow up in the belief of the innocency of the traffic, and this conviction they may sincerely retain. But error, though sincere, is error still. Right and wrong do not depend on human judgment or human will. Truth and Duty may be hidden for ages; but they remain unshaken as God's throne; and when, in the course of God's providence, they are made known to one or to a few, they must be proclaimed, whoever may be opposed. Truth, truth, is the Hope of the World. Let it be spoken with kindness, but with power."-W. E. CHANNING, D.D.

+ Works, vol. iv.

Inquiry into the State of the Lower Classes; in a Letter to William Wilberforce, Esq., M.P. Dublin, 1798,-p. 30. Letter to Hannah More.

four, going home at various times; having lost the balance of reason in liquor, they are misled by the dishonest and profligate... An industrious man frequently goes into these houses after work, with an intention of taking a glass or two, but in consequence of the company present, and the facility that the law allows the innkeeper, he is persuaded to stop. In consequence of that he is not able to get up to attend to his business at the proper time. "* Messrs FEARON, Gin-spinners, Holborn Hill: "We consider we are promoting the moral improvement of the people, by offering every advantage to the very poorest purchaser to obtain the best article [in gin] for his consumption at home,* without exposing him to the temptations incident to those establishments where drinking is allowed on the premises."+

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Mr J. STINTON, Publican: "I do think it would be a good thing for the morals of the people, if about one-half of the beerhouses of Birmingham were to be shut up.' (3792.) "Many beerhouses are kept by foremen in different manufactories; perhaps he has a dozen men under him; these men are bound to go to that man's house; and their wives and homes sacrificed." (3780.) "It matters not how much bread is sold, it is an advantage to the poor; but the free trade of spirits and ale requires more control! Free trade in spirits would be very mischievous." "Proposing to restrict it on Sunday evening, is an excessive restriction. You may have too much of a good thing." (3784, 88.)|| "There is something attractive in seeing a licensed victualler, with all the appliances of his trade about him; there he is with his pipe in his mouth; it all looks so tempting, which is not the case in any other trade. (3760.)

Mr J. POWELL, Cabman, London: "They are drawn into the public-houses from their being open; they cannot withstand the temptation." (945.)

Mr C. BOWTHORPE, Coach Painter: "I have heard people say that they wished the public-houses were closed, that they should not be tempted to go into them. A man in my neighborhood took a petition round, and he was laughed at, because it is known he used the public-house more than he ought; but he got 370 signatures for all that." (842.) "From what class? Very many drunkards; from the working class altogether.

I

* 2nd Report on Public-houses. August, 1854.-pp. 290-2. p. 215. It is quite startling to hear that Domestic-gin-drinking 'promotes moral improvement.' The Traffickers have a curious knack of converting negatives into positives, but very different from the plan of a photographic artist; for they change a little less evil into a great deal of good (i.e. in words), which are things very unlike. On the other hand, the Traffickers object to prohibition, that it produces home.drinking-which they talk of as bad!

+ Mr Stinton would not stint them from going to his!

All this is very amusing logic. As if free-trade could be controlled-or, as if spirits that were mischievous' on Sunday morning became innocent on Sunday evening. But the grossest stupidity and inversion of thought is in the applica tion of the proverb. The real question is-Can we have TOO LITTLE of a BAD thing?

believe it to be general, that men who drink in this way themselves, wish to be saved from the temptation.” Mr G. HADDOCK, Carpenter, Norwood; "The general feeling is with mechanics, that they wish the public-houses were closed altogether; it is an inducement to draw them from their families, and to spend their money.

Mr R. T. CHAMEN, a Publican, who shuts his house on the Sunday: "Having the public-houses open on Sunday is a temptation offered to people to drink? Too much so. Drunkenness would diminish, if that temptation were placed out of their way ? Yes. Sunday is a time when they have money in their pockets. We know what the lower class is; they have not sufficient control to withstand their own passions, and thereby the money is spent which they might [else] reserve for their families.” (656, 663.) "Have you heard people express such a wish (For Sunday closing)? Yes."

Mr J. C. FOWLER, Stipendiary Magistrate for the Counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth : "All the licensed houses should be closed at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon until Monday morning. Conversations held with a considerable number of working men, taken by chance, have convinced me that they themselves will rejoice at such a change. I believe they are generally alive to the evils of drinking, and seem to feel the need of some protection against their own habits and frailties."*

The PETITION signed by 232 prisoners in the Preston Gaol (1854), † heartily prays: "That your Honorable House would be pleased to take such measures as will, on the one hand, lead to the suppression of the beerhouse curse, and on the other, promote whatever may extend the means of rational amusement and intellectual progress among the laboring classes of the kingdom."

Rev. JOHN CLAY, of the Preston House of Correction : "Over and over again my friends among the laboring classes have said, 'Mr Clay, the public-houses are cursing this place.' A great portion of the laboring classes would be very glad if there were circumstances quite external to themselves which should prevent them having access to liquor, and that feeling is evinced almost every week, by some prisoner or other who comes under my observation for an offence arising from drunkenness, and who says, 'I wish beer was 10s. a quart.' When a laboring man sees a door fastened, he would be content to go away.' "" "I am quite sure that almost all the laboring classes, when they are sober, and have the use of their reason, would wish the houses closed the whole of Sunday. The wives of these men would be more glad than any other portion of the community." (6305.) Do you not think, if such a proposition was made, there would be active re

* Second Report on Public-houses, p. 288. + 1st Report, pp. 373-4. Ibid, p. 367. p. 366.

sistance to it? I do not think there would." (6309.) "There are very great efforts made to spread religious teaching and education; but, on the other hand, the facilities for keeping the laboring man down, in the public-houses and the beerhousess, counteract all those advantages."

Mr J. HEYNES, superintendent of Southwark police:* "The Publican always takes care to serve as long as he can do so without rendering himself liable to the Act of Parliament; as soon as a party gets drunk and disorderly, he turns him into the street, for the police to deal with him."

Mr H. DANSON, Beer Agent, Liverpool: "If the trade were thrown open, we do not know what amount of Police we should require; in fact, the borough fund would scarcely pay them."

Mr Alderman WIRE : "If you were to abolish it (the traffic), as they have done in Maine, you might have a sober population; but if you restrict it, I do not think you would." (10011.) “Í think you may do a great deal to regulate, and ultimately to suppress, by law." (10012) "Must not some persons have a public-house next door to them? Yes: but the inhabitants of Belgrave Square would not like to have a licence granted for a house in that neighborhood and if granted, it would be injurious to the morals of the neighborhood."

Mr ROBERTSON GLADSTONE, Magistrate, Liverpool: "We should not 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 beerhouses. I believe they are the source of all the mischief." (1194.)

Mr JOHN GRUNDY, J.P., Bury: "He had no hesitation in saying, that he regarded the beerhouses as nests of vice and the pests of society."

Rev. WALTER IRVINE, Newcastle-on-Tyne :|| "It was to be regretted that, in a wealthy town like Newcastle, there should be a necessity for ragged schools. But as long as they had the means of making rags for children, there would be a necessity for ragged schools. He looked forward to the day when they would cease to have the name of 'Ragged School' inscribed on the walls of that institution. But, in the present state of things, it would be useless to expend the money devoted to this building upon clothes for the children; for those clothes would only be pledged to obtain those soul-destroying liquors which were a curse to society in this town, and wherever they were sold. He wanted to get away from the necessity of such institutions. EDITOR of the Record, Church Newspaper: "The reports from

* 1st Report, p. 312.

1st Report on Public houses-p 81.

At the Brewsters' Sessions, September 7, 1855.

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July 25, 1851, on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of the Ragged Schools there, by the Mayor.