TABLE III.-AVERAGE CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL PER HEAD OF

The substance of the above Second Section tables may be briefly indicated. Taking the average consumption of the last three years, it shows that in the United Kingdom, one year with another, the annual consumption was nearly 27,000,000 gallons of spirits, nearly 8,000,000 gallons of wine, nearly 600,000,000 gallons of malt liquor, and 10,000,000 gallons of cider. The average consumption per head of the whole population (including all Teetotalers-they, happily, are only included on paper), was, of spirits, not quite a gallon; of wine, above a quarter of a gallon; of malt liquor, above twenty gallons and a half; of cider, about a third of a gallon. Taking the proportion of alcohol contained in each of these kinds of strong drink, we further find that each person in the United Kingdom was allotted more than a gallon and a half of pure alcohol in each of those years.

Comparing the average consumption in each kingdom, the following facts are disclosed:-As to spirits, each Englishman's share was above four-fifths of a gallon of spirits; each Scotchman's, one gallon and foursevenths; each Irishman's, above nine-tenths of a gallon. In regard to ale and beer the proportions were reversed, each Englishman carrying off twenty-seven gallons and a quarter; each Scot, seven and a quarter; and each son of Erin less than five and a half. As to pure alcohol, the average annual allotment of each Englishman was a gallon and more than fourfifths; of each Scotchman, one gallon and not quite a half; of each Irishman, a little over three quarters of a gallon. One Englishman thus annually consumes twice the alcohol consumed by each Irishman, with nearly the third of a gallon still to spare. Each Scot also doubles the potations of each Hibernian. For a number of years past the annual consumption of spirits in both Scotland and Ireland has rapidly diminished, the result of a higher duty, assisted in Scotland by the Forbes Mackenzie Act. The English consumption has also been reduced. It is in malt liquor that the Englishman gains his unenviable supremacy over his competents; for, in the form of ale and beer, he takes upwards of three times the amount of alcohol he consumes in ardent spirits, exactly three times the quantity drunk by the Irishman in the spirituous form, and half as much alcohol again as the North Briton quaffs under the name of whiskey, rum, and brandy.

These tables it must be remembered, relate only to consumption, not to production or importation. Scotland, while consuming less spirits than

formerly, continues to be the chief producer of spirits, for which she finds customers and drinkers less " canny " than herself. The quantities of spirits made and paying duty in the three kingdoms, in each of the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, were:

7,230,863 7,868,525 7,765,326 10,592,049 10,108,522 8,952,174 13,190,865 13,946,536 11,879,436 7,123,906 6,428,549 6,070,091 7,235,993 6,474,670 4,297,971 6,538,448 5,336,313 5,022,894

U. Kingdom 27,657,721 28,289,731 23,942,733 24,254,403 21,873,384 20,045,159

Very much remains to be done-and who are to attempt the doing but those who feel the need and confess the duty?-before in every part of the United Kingdom the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors become deservedly outlawed, and take their places (if place they retain) among the clandestine questions of the counterfeiter and the betting-shop.

A Glance at the Pauperism of Drunkenness and its Cost. By JOHN HALCRO, J.P., Sunderland.

Do

URING a lengthened and close experience, as a guardian of the poor, in a Union embracing a population of upwards of 100,000 persons, I have learnt, what is patent to all who have been similarly circumstanced, that intemperance is the most active and extensive source of pauperism in operation. In order to gauge with some degree of accuracy the amount fairly attributable to this cause, I have taken indiscriminately from the workhouse of Sunderland Union, which contains about 400 persons, the names of the inmates of two male and two female wards, consisting in all of 100 paupers; and after obtaining from them a confession of the cause of their present position, or ascertaining the same from officers of the Union familiar with their history, or from my own personal knowledge, I have established the fact unequivocally that not less than 64 per cent. of them owe to intemperance, either directly or indirectly, their present dependent and degraded circumstances. Even this result is but an approximate estimate to the full extent of this evil connection; and therefore we are entitled to assume that three-fourths of English pauperism is traceable to our national drunkenness, and, if so, what is the cost at which this vast mass of human sin and misery is created?

From the thirteenth annual report of the Poor-law Board, I find that £5,454,964 were expended in relief of the poor for England and Wales in the year 1860; and allowing that three-fourths of this expenditure is due to intemperance, what an astounding fact is presented to the highlytaxed ratepayers of this country. Think of four millions sterling annually wrung from us by the demon of strong drink! Four millions sterling

annually extorted from the industrious and the thrifty by the idle, the dissolute, and the spendthrift! Let us particularise, and see what is the yearly cost of pauperism to a population of 100,000 persons. Last year the sum of £28,000 was raised for the relief of the poor and other purposes, by the Sunderland Union, from the owners and occupants of property within its bounds. At least £20,000 of this sum were expended in support of the poor and in maintenance of the police. Now, as I have the best authority for believing that one-half of our police force is occupied in the suppression of the crimes and disorders created by the public-house, I am prepared to assert that the ratepayers of that Union are annually taxed to the extent of at least £13,000 by that evil of intemperance which inflicts all other kinds and degrees of misery upon society.

It strikes me that it will be expedient in our central, and especially in our local Temperance agitation, to give greater prominency to the financial element. The appeal hitherto principally addressed to the moral sense of our countrymen is assuredly the most elevated; but to rouse to active co-operation of greater masses of this busy and money-seeking nation, we must make our appeal also to the more wide-spread feeling of self-interest.

In the borough of Sunderland, this year, we have given prominence to the fact that not less than one-half of these heavy burdens on trade and property are inflicted by drunkenness; and in canvassing for signatures to our monster memorial, which contained upwards of 12,000 names, a deep impression was evidently produced by our specific reference to the pecuniary extortion, which excited many to exclamations of indignation at the injustice of such taxation, and was the means of leading nine-tenths of those to whom we appealed to identify themselves with our movement.

The Influence of the Liquor-Traffic on Municipal Government and Local Rates, with some Statistics. By GEOrge Ward, Leeds.

THAT

HAT the drinking habits of the people, and the legalised facilities for obtaining intoxicating drinks, are the main hindrances to good and economical government, local and national, is generally admitted by those who take the trouble to think upon the subject. It unfortunately too often happens that those who do think at all consider the evils so great and deeply-rooted, and a cure so utterly hopeless, that the thought is dismissed as too painful to be endured, and so a remedy is never devised. But let us ask who appoint the Town Council? The ratepayers or burgesses. By whom is the Watch Committee appointed? The Town Council appointed by the ratepayers. So, then, it appears that the Town Council as a whole, and the Watch Committee as a part, are alike responsible to the ratepayers, and the ratepayers or burgesses are responsible

for the character and quality of the Town Council; on them rest the onus of sending the right or wrong kind of men to govern the town wisely and economically.

At a time when great complaints were made as to the enormous increase in the local rates of the borough of Leeds, in order to establish the connection between crime, pauperism, and the Drink-Traffic, the following address was largely circulated by order of the committee of the Leeds Temperance Society :

"To the Ratepayers of the Borough of Leeds.

"A poor rate of 2s. 4d. in the pound was confirmed by the magistrates on the 1st of February, 1861, and the overseers stated they feared the next would have to be 2s. 8d., making together 5s. for about a year, for poor, borough gaol, and watch rate. They also stated that 2s. 4d. would raise upwards of £28,000, being above £1,000 for each ld. of rate. Consequently the 5s. rate will extract from your pockets above £60,000. If drink and the Drink-Traffic cause five-sixths of the crime and pauperism of the town, they cause also five-sixths of the cost, or £50,000, which is paid annually by the ratepayers of Leeds, and the figures may properly stand thus:-Poor rate, £10,000; drink rate, £50,000; total, £60,000.

"If the ratepayers wish to remedy this, they must aim at removing the cause of the evil, and not confine themselves to dealing with the effects merely, and support at all public elections those candidates only who will seek in this way to dimish the burdens of our local taxation by giving the control of the Liquor-Traffic to the ratepayers themselves." There is in Leeds, as in many other large towns, a Ratepayers' Association, whose professed object is to see that economy is exercised in the administration of corporate and poor-law affairs. This association had placarded the walls with large bills complaining loudly of the excessive rates and extravagant expenditure of public money, but completely ignored the existing causes necessitating such large expenditure and excessive rates. In reply to the bill of the association, one similar to the foregoing was issued and largely circulated, in which it was set forth that but for the DrinkTraffic 10d. in the pound, or £10,000 annually, would be ample for all purposes included in the term poor rate.

The writer of these addresses appeals to the ratepayers-" If they wish to remedy the evils complained of, whether they ought not to aim at removing the cause." This is, of course, the only philosophic plan. "But how?" asks some one almost in despair. "I see no remedy for this state of things; our corporate body seem comparatively of little use but to increase our rates and spend our money. Our Watch Committee appears of very little real value for the suppression of crime; we have a multitude of policemen whose chief business appears to be to do as little as they can, and live at our expense." "But do you really wish to remedy these evils ?" "Yes, certainly." "Do you believe the assigned cause, the Drink-Traffic, to be the real one?" "There seems to be little use disputing it, as the effects unmistakably point to that as the source whence they flow." He (the writer) would also have his fellow burgesses and ratepayers look at the

composition of governing bodies, and send such men only as are opposed to the Drink-Traffic to manage their affairs as the surest way of securing economy in expenditure, and minimum rates. The importance to the burgesses and ratepayers of securing men of this class cannot be overestimated; yet, judging from the position occupied by many members of our corporate bodies and boards of guardians, it would seem as though the reverse were the case; that brewers, maltsters, and drink sellers were the most suitable persons to look after the general weal; that men engaged in a peace-disturbing, crime-producing calling, were the fittest to see that the corporate towns of England" for ever be and remain well and quietly governed." The composition of our town councils is a curious, and, to every real friend of economy and good order in the management of our local affairs, a painful study. Men are more frequently returned to a seat in the council chamber, and through that, it may be, to sit on the watch committee, because of the amount of money they are able and willing to spend for the benefit of the publican, than for any fitness they possess to serve the public. Nay, as above hinted, the very publican himself may be the chosen representative of economy and retrenchment.

Mr. English, ex-chief constable of Leeds, whose experience has not been of a very circumscribed or merely local kind, and extends over a long series of years, during which he has had ample opportunity to form and mature a correct opinion, says, in a letter to a friend in Leeds, written shortly after his resignation" Drunkenness and profligacy are the cause of nearly the whole of the crime; and that the amount rests very much in the hands of the Watch Committee. I am convinced that drink is at the root-is the Alpha and Omega of nearly all crime. I believe, if you could trace every offence to its source, that almost universally drink would be found its initial cause. There may be exceptions, but they are rare indeed; and what may at first sight appear as such may be but the result of the evil, the dissolute life of a drunken parent. Whilst the public are taxed on every side in the amount of property stolen, crime committed-detected and undetected— costs of prosecutions, supporting prisoners, maintaining police and courts of justice, still no real effort is made to grapple with this hydra-headed

evil."

* * *

In Leeds there are 385 public-houses and 317 beer-shops;* of the former 61, or about 16 per cent., are known to the police as the resort of thieves and prostitutes; 33, according to the late chief constable's last report, are entirely supported by these characters, to which may be added 31 beer-shops, making a total of 64.

From 1st August, 1861, to 1st August, 1862, there were 52 charges preferred against licensed houses, allowing 11 for double informations and 1 withdrawn, equal to 12; it leaves 40 convictions for the following offences :

* A total of 702, or exactly twenty-seven times the proportion thought sufficient by an Act of Parliament for London and Westminster in 1553. These cities were then allowed forty-one taverns, and at the same rate Leeds would have twenty-six!