The French criminal code, still actually in force in Holland, expressly forbids the judge to admit any excuse, not nominally authorised by law. And as no article of law enumerates intoxication under this head, so jurisprudence has decreed that intoxication does not destroy the responsibility of the offender. I dare not say that it is not sometimes, by some tribunals, silently admitted as an argument for mitigating the penalty, though other magistrates deem it an aggravating circumstance. Much will depend on the personal opinion of the members of our numerous courts. The criminal codes for the army and navy contain an especial provision about drunken offenders (sec. 14, navy; sec. 16, land army), viz. ::--" Whereas persons in military service ever and especially ought to beware of drunkenness, so voluntary or purposed intoxication never, and even accidental intoxication shall not readily be admitted as an excuse for not applying, or for mitigating, the ordinary penalty of crimes committed by those who belong to the naval or land service." The intention of this section, framed in 1814, was to put forth a strict and severe rule, but the reduction is somewhat loose, and the words not readily have been construed sometimes as a loop-hole for drunken offenders, or at least made to justify a plea for attenuation of punishments. In the various projects of a new criminal code that have been published, and even discussed in the Chamber, this point gave a great deal of trouble. The lawyers, who undertook this difficult task, stumbled over the double distinction between voluntary and accidental, and between such a degree of intoxication as deprives the drinker of his intellectual powers, and such as only excites him to do evil. 2. Ought drunkenness itself to be a punishable offence? The mere state of inebriation never was subjected to penalties in Holland, except when occurring in military service, or on board a merchantman.* * Officers and soldiers of the army and navy, and sailors on board of menof-war, are liable to disciplinary corrections when found drunk, especially when on service or placed as sentinels. The captain of a merchantman may inflict a diminution, even a total forfeiture of wages on persons belonging to his crew, if repeatedly drunk. (By law of 7th May, 1856, sec. 7.) Pilots appointed by Government incur, for mere inebriation, a fine of from 7 to 15 guilders when on service, for the second time, double, for the third time, or even sooner under aggravating circumstances, they are dismissed. (Royal decree, 12th November, 1859, sec. 25.) In private persons even drunkenness in the streets, or drunk and disorderly, is not punishable by any law of the kingdom. Only nightly and injurious brawls, disturbing the quietness of the inhabitants, are forbidden by the French code (sec. 479-80) under the threat of a small fine, and imprisonment from one to five days. Should not the being inebriated and the getting inebriated be distinguished? In the causation we include the seller and the drinker; and, of course, the law which sanctions the sale.-Ed. But in a great many towns and villages local regulations have been set forth against drunkenness in the streets, directing offenders of this kind to be taken into custody by the police, summoned afterwards before the justices, and condemned to fine, or from one to three days' imprisonment in case of non-payment. As yet the town councils of our largest communities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague, have not passed a resolution of that kind. Practically, in those towns as in others, the drunken are brought into custody, but set free when they become sober. Nevertheless, in Amsterdam, drunken coachmen are fined, and likewise spirit sellers who have sold intoxicating drinks to persons already inebriated, or to children under sixteen years. The municipal regulations concerning drunk and disorderly persons are rather severe at Schiedam, the source and fountain of genever (gin). 3. Ever since strong beverages were used in Holland they have been taxed for the States and local revenues. On beer, or rather malt, is imposed a duty of of a penny per gallon. Foreign beers pay a tax of 2d. per gallon. The excise on wine is 20f. per hectolitre, without any difference as to the value or alcoholic power of the wine. The excise on home-distilled spirits is of 22f. per hectolitre, or 17 d. per gallon; on foreign brandies of 35f. per hectolitre, or 2s. 4d. per gallon; on foreign liquors of 52f. per hectolitre, or 3s. 51d. per gallon. Municipalities may impose a local excise on beer up to 70 cents; on wine up to 12f.; on home-distilled spirits to 13f. 20c.; on foreign brandies to 13f. 30c.; on foreign liquors to 13f. 52c. per hectolitre. In some large town those taxes, except on beer, can be augmented to oneand-a-half times that maximum. The malt tax is generally unpopular, and not used as a local revenue; but for some years past there has been a strong tendency in our municipal bodies to increase the revenue by local taxes on wine and spirits. In most places augmentations of from 50 to even 100 per cent. of those taxes have no sensible effect on the quantity consumed.* By several town councils and provincial assemblies petitions have been forwarded to Government, praying for the duty on spirits and liquors to be doubled for the State, and giving a compensation to the communities, from which, in that case, the power of taxing those articles would be taken. The tendency of that measure should be, to place a uniform heavy tax throughout the whole kingdom, and thus prevent smuggling from one town or village to another. The last returns of the State revenue indicate an average receipt from duties on spirits of about 6,000,000f.; on wine, of about 1,250,000f.; on beer and vinegar, of about 500,000f. Deducting the duty on vinegar, put at 250,000f., we have for the State's duties on intoxicating drinks, 7,500,000f. a year; that is about five-twelfths of all consumptive taxes, and nearly one-seventh of all the taxes in the kingdom. From the This is owing to the people being so well-off; poverty is not so general with them as with us, and that the class affected by higher duties is small.-Ed. revenue tables the following consumption of spirits (home-distilled and foreign) is calculated for the last ten years: Gallons. 1852 Home-distilled, 5,669,075 Foreign, 233,145 Total, 5,902,220 The increase of consumption from 1852 to 1861 is thirteen per cent., whilst the population of the kingdom increased only by 8.5 per cent. The average quantity of pure spirits consumed by each head is two and a half gallons; the real quantity of strong drinks used is much larger, because an unknown quantity is smuggled, and the fewest liquors are sold pure, even the unadulterated genever and brandy being of no higher alcoholic strength than ninety-four per cent. the areometer. 4. A well-conducted, self-consistent system of license law and regulation of the Drink-Traffic belongs still to the pious wishes of the minority in Holland. So, strange to say, it is in the present state of legislation, an unsettled question whether we possess the Permissive Act, asked for by the British Alliance; that is, whether municipalities have a discretionary power in admitting and prohibiting liquor-shops or not? According to a law of 1819, every one who carries on a trade, or a lucrative profession (a few nominally excepted), ought to ask, and to receive, a periodical patent or license from his municipality, and pay the tax settled by certain tariffs to Government. In order that this issue of patents or licenses may have the character of a fiscal means only, and to prevent the renewal of ancient guilds and monopolies, it is enacted by the second section of the law that every patentee has a right, during the time for which the patent is granted, to follow his trade or profession wherever he shall judge proper to do so; nevertheless no such patents shall apply to a profession which he is forbidden to follow either by a law of the kingdom or by a regulation approved of the King. Now, if the council of a village or a town makes a regulation, by which the establishing of new drinking-shops or inns is prohibited during a certain time, or in a certain locality of its jurisdiction, is such regulation binding for patentees? If this be answered in the affirmative, then the municipalities have the absolute power of refusing to admit any places where strong drinks are sold, even to forbid them for the next year where they are already existing. For this affirmative it is pleaded that though the police regulations of towns and villages be not expressly confirmed by the King, yet they are issued under the King's authority, because the King has a constitutional power to declare them void if they be contrary to the laws or the public good. Further, that the Municipal Law of 1851 (sec. 135) confers upon the council the power of making regulations to promote public order, morality, and health; that every one of these great objects is intimately connected with the number of tippling houses; and that the same law confers upon the burgomaster (sec. 188) the police supervision over public-houses and drinking-shops, which must be enforced under local regulations. For the negative, and therefore in favour of the entire liberty of the Liquor-Traffic, it is argued that patentees have an absolute right to carry on a profession for which they have paid the tax, in so far as this is not prohibited by a special law or a royal decree, as with the trade in gunpowder, in poisons, in drugs, and with certain fabrics; that the provisoes of the Municipal Law are too generally worded to admit of such an extensive power over one branch of trade; and that the section conferring the supervision of public-houses upon the burgomasters, which admits the fact of local regulations about such houses, also implies the lawfulness of the houses themselves. Nevertheless, on one occasion, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Netherlands has maintained a local regulation prohibiting the establishment of public-houses without permission, and Government has never interfered. A few municipalities also have made the legality of publichouses dependent upon the permission of the burgomaster; and our Temperance Society strongly urges the town councils to make similar regulations. Still some uncertainty prevails,* and a legislative measure is highly *The following letter has since been received from Judge Heemskerk, which is unfavourable to the hopes of Temperance men: Amsterdam, October 20th, 1862. Dear Sir, I beg to inform you of an interesting, but not a rejoicing decision of our Government with regard to the Permissive Prohibition question. The council of the village community of Nossum (province Gelderland), in a regulation concerning inns, drinking shops, and public amusements, had ordained that the Traffic in ardent spirits should not be exercised in a certain hamlet belonging to the community, where as yet no drinking shops had existed. By royal decree of the 1st of this month, this proviso of the local regulation has been declared void, for the following reasons:-"That according to the law of 21st May, 1819, the profession of spirit dealer is subjected to the duty of patent (license, which cannot be refused to him who pays the retribution). That, by section 2 of the same law, the patentee has a right to exercise the profession wherever he chooses, and that this lawful right can only be suppressed or restrained by a law or a regulation, approved by us (the King). That, in consequence hereof, the village council could not forbid the inhabitants of a part of the community to exercise a profession subject to the patent duty, by a regulation for which our approbation is not required [viz., the previous approbation of the King is not required to put local police regulations in force, but they can can be declared void by royal decree if they contain anything contrary to law or to the public good]; that, therefore, the regulation of the village of Nossum is unlawful. As the Municipal Law of this country is exactly the same for villages and even the largest towns, so this decision of Government, taken without any public notice or deliberation (though upon advice of the State Council of the Thirteen), at once decides an important question for all municipal councils, in the sense contrary to the wishes of Temperance men. If the extended report of the International Convention be not yet completed, I Prohibitory and License Laws in North America. 337 desirable-firstly, to settle the competency; secondly, to refer the decision to the council elected by the taxpayers, and not to the burgomaster, who is the Government's officer, and, like your magistrates, not always acquainted or sympathising with public feeling. About the hours of opening and closing public-houses, selling liquors to women, to children, and to inebriated persons, a great diversity of local regulations exist; so that what is permitted in some place is forbidden a few furlongs further. On Sunday, public-houses must be shut during Divine service, other shops during the whole day. Just complaints against the inequality of this law have been raised for many years, still it remains in force throughout the kingdom. In 1856, one of our ablest statesmen (M. Rochussen, the late Governor-General of Java) proposed a parliamentary inquiry into spirit drinking, drunkenness, and the legislative and administrative measures that might be taken against those evils. That proposition was not carried, but in 1857 a committee of five members of the States-General gave an extensive memorandum about a great number of proposed measures. Unluckily, they came to no practical and positive conclusion, and were prejudiced against a Maine-law; and so this important question, though somewhat different as to actual legislation, is not more advanced, and presents not less difficulties in Holland than in England. On the Comparative Working of Prohibitory and License Laws, and of Practical Free Trade in Liquor, in different parts of North America. By PHILIP P. CARPENTER, B.A., PH.D. My balteration has been made by the present war Y experience goes back to the latter part of Mr. Buchanan's I cannot say. My travels extended into all the Free States east of the Rocky Mountains; into the Slave States, except those on the Gulf, Tennessee, and Arkansas; and into the length and breadth of Upper and Lower Canada. My especial objects in travel were to gain information as to the working of political and social institutions; as to the condition of the emigrant classes, and as to the scientific matters which had taken me across the Atlantic. Especially I wished to form my own opinion as to the operation of the liquor laws and of the slave system. I considered that what information is gained by ordinary travel in first-class carriages, and at first-class hotels and the private houses of the rich, was already accessible. I preferred to make my way almost without introductions, on foot wherever practicable, in hotels frequented by emigrants and the poorer Americans, and in districts out of the ordinary beats of travel. I guarded against the natural fault of observers to see things from one's own point of view; and as I knew that my feelings and principles were strong in certain directions (though disconnected from all political and religious parties), I endeavoured to throw myself out into the stand-point |