Social Statistics. have not found a single patient suffer from the want of alcoholic stimulants. I have been surrounded daily by about forty medical men, surgeons and physicians, not one of whom has ever told me, during the twenty-five years that I have followed the treatment, that I inflicted an injury on my patients by withholding alcoholic stimulants; but the question has been asked me how it affected my pecuniary interest. This I have disregarded altogether, as I fully counted the cost in the beginning, being assured that there would be not only loss of money but of reputation. This passage of Scripture was strongly impressed on my mind-"He that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James iv. 17.) The teetotaler has the same enemies to fight with as the Christian-the world, the flesh, and the devil; depraved appetites, worldly interests and customs; with ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.' We might go on to quote histories 353 from the experience of merchants and manufacturers, of whom we have portraits and histories, such as Alderman HARVEY, whom all teetotalers honour; Mr. GUEST, of Rotherham; the late Mr. JOSEPH STURGE, &c. We might introduce sketches of the learned at the bar and in literature, as Mr. Samuel Pope and Dr. Lees, whose portraits will be recognized. There are also some of the gentry, such as Sir Walter Trevelyan, the munificent patron of all social reform and the president of the United Kingdom Alliance; Sir John Stuart Forbes; and of others, such as the late James Simpson, Esq., always a liberal supporter of the temperance cause. But our space will not permit. Altogether, Mr. Caine and Mr. Lythgoe deserve great credit for their portraits by engravers and by printers. Though the list of reformers is somewhat one-sided and incomplete, we accept this instalment with gratitude, and commend it to our readers. ART. VIII.-SOCIAL STATISTICS. OFFICIAL STATISTICS ON INTOXICATING HARD things are sometimes said against the 'public money wasted' on parliamentary printing. Blue books and Returns are, no doubt, occasionally too prolix and expensive; but a general charge, founded on exceptional cases, is essentially unjust, and of but little service in the cause of a rational economy. That nobody reads Blue-books and Returns' might be no fault of those productions or their authors; but that, too, is a statement as extravagant as the one which it is usually designed to cover. De Quincey pointedly says that Blue-books are often sneered at by the ignorant as so much waste paper.' Sure we are that all those documents which impart official information on the measure and mode of the consumption of intoxicating liquors are well worth all they cost the country, and would be worth still more if the lessons they enshrine were more eagerly scanned and more earnestly taken to heart. A Return very lately published in obedience to an order of the House of Commons (procured by Mr. Edward Baines, M.P, Vol. 3.-No. 12. 2 for Leeds) gives occasion for the foregoing remarks: and we shall proceed to present a summary, exceedingly condensed, of the valuable results which it embodies. This object we may best attain by asking and answering several questions. The Return relates to the years 1851-9, inclusive, with the first half-year of 1860; but it will be necessary for us, having an eye to our limited space, to confine ourselves pretty much to the last year of the series. Our inquiries will then occupy the following order : What, in regard to the United Kingdom, are the facts of the Return for 1859? What is the relation of each of the countries in the United Kingdom to its collective result? What is the relation of 1859 to the foregoing years included in the Return? I. As to the United Kingdom, the facts call for a threefold classification: the intoxicating liquor consumed by the people of the United Kingdom; the public channels of its supply; and the pecuniary interest of the government in regard to the consumption and supply. B 1. The The quantities of wine imported were 8,195,513 gallons; those charged duty, 7,263,046 gallons; those retained for consumption, 6,775,992 gallons. Of malt, the quantities charged with duty were 44,219,300 bushels; besides which 5,159,894 bushels were used in distilleries, and 301,204 bushels exported, both of which amounts were free of duty. The total number of bushels made was, therefore, 49,680,398. The malt charged duty was of course made into ale and beer, which may be estimated at about 19 millions of barrels, or 666 millions of gallons. This mass of distilled and fermented liquor contained at least 60 millions of gallons of alcohol, more than three-fourths of which was consumed in the shape of ale, beer, and wine. As cider and perry are not subjected to an excise impost, there is no official record of the quantities manufactured and used, all of which are in addition to the quantities above accounted for. 2. The public channels of supplyin other words, the liquor traffickersare minutely described in the Return before us. The manufacture of ardent spirits is in the hands of distillers and rectifiers; the former, 176 (England 16, Scotland 125, Ireland 35); the latter, 158 (England 104, Scotland 9, Ireland 45). The brewers number 40,389 (England 40,019, Scotland 245, Ireland 125). The above may be taken to indicate distinct persons; but when we come to the licences issued for the sale of wine, beer, and spirits respectively,' we have no authoritative index as to the separate individuals selling, or places of sale occupied by them. The licences for the wholesale traffic are thus classified : Social Statistics. In the year 1859, therefore, the licences granted by virtue of magistrates' certificates were 206,979, and by the operation of the English Beer Act 43,801. How many of the former represent separate places of sale cannot be more than approximately settled. Each magistrates' certificate entitled the presentee to take out one, two, or three licences, on payment of the fees; and it may be presumed that every presentee took out a beer licence. Hence the beer licences (except in Scotland, where there is a common beer and spirit licence,) are the largest in number, and may be considered to represent, both for England and Ireland, the number of licenced-victualling venders. For the United Kingdom, we may, therefore, roughly estimate the whole number to be thus distri 355 buted: England 64,372, Scotland (11,938+410) = 12,348, Ireland 17,168, a total of 93,888; to whom the 43,801 beer retailers of England must be joined, offering to view an array of 137,689 persons licensed by the State to carry on by retail this baneful traffic. 3. The pecuniary interest of the government in the maintenance of this system is a point of most painful interest. It is our business here to deal only with the figures of the question. The revenue thus procured is derived (1) from the tax imposed on the liquors sold or the materials used in their manufacture; and (2) from the sale of licences, without which no traffic in them is legal. (1) Of these sources of revenue the first is immensely the more prolific. 4,236,819 915,586 1,360,744 2,849,562 9,701,760 It thus appears that from the duties on various liquors the exchequer received 17,560,6991. (2) The second source of revenuethe sale of licences-brought in, from England 866,300l., Scotland 90,310l., Ireland 97,352l., a total of 1,053,9621. (The tax on malsters' licences is not included in this account) We have, in this double set of figures, a key to the problem, why the Excise officials manifest more activity in the suppression of illicit distillation or malting, than in the suppression of illicit vending. II. We have been compelled to forestall some replies to the second general query on the relation of the several countries forming the United Kingdom to the aggregate of the liquors consumed and traded in. Something, however, remains to be said on this point. As to the consumption of ardent spirits, Scotland is first, Ireland second, and England (slightly) the last. Of every nine persons in the United Kingdom, one resides in Scotland, two in Ireland, and six in England. If the consumption of spirits in each had been in equal proportion, it would have been about 32 gills (one gallon) per head; but the actual average consumption was (about) in England, 28 gills, Scotland 56 gills, and Ireland 29 gills per head. The consumption of wine is probably about equal among the wineconsuming classes of each kingdom. As to malt liquor, our only guide is the quantity of malt charged duty in each country; and assuming that the consumption in each is about equivalent to the manufacture in each, a comparison would show that, whereas the average consumption, proportioned to population, would be 223 gallons in each country, the actual consumption is, for England, 610 million gallons = 31 gallons per head, Scotland 24 million gallons 7 per head, and Ireland 32 million gallons 5 per head. Allowing, even, for the greater use of English-made beer and ales in the two other 2 B 2 = = other countries, the proportion will not be seriously disturbed. III. How 1859 compares with preceding years, as to drink-making and drink-consuming, is a question which we can barely touch upon. In England the consumption of spirits (except of the foreign sorts) is evidently increasing. With the exception of 1855, the march of British spirits has been steadfastly and terribly upwards; and with malt liquor it is the same. The retail licences have also multiplied in every department; the publicans' from 60,870 in 1851, to 64,372; the beer-retailers' from 41,574 to 43,801. In Scotland, under the combined influence of the Forbes Mackenzie Act and a more than doubled tax on whiskey (48. up to 8s. 2d.) the whiskey-gallons THE emptied in 1859 were one-fifth fewer than in 1851, and the licences have diminished from 14,846 to 12,348. In Ireland, where the increase of duty has been even greater than in Scotland (from 38. up to 8s. 2d.), the consumption has fallen one-fourth, though the licences have risen from 14,657 to 17,482; a fact which somewhat favours the supposition that illicit distillation has extensively revived, though the Excise officers discredit the imputation. Here we stop. Sufficient has been quoted to show the importance of this Parliamentary Return, and the unbounded importance of using, and extending, all available resources for driving intemperance, and its physical causes, from our native shores. ART. IX.-RECORD OF SOCIAL POLITICS. HE great social event of the past quarter, claiming special attention of Meliora,' is the fourth annual congress of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, which was held at Glasgow under the presidency of Lord Brougham. We should be glad, were we able, to present our readers with an ample summary of the very interesting proceedings of the congress; but as that is impossible, we must select, out of the multifarious details of subjects, plans, and suggestions, several of those points which may be deemed specially appropriate as fraught with needful, moral, and social lessons, or as paving the way for great legislative measures of amelioration. Law reform, prison reform, sanitary reform, social reform, and every kind of reform that can interest the philanthropist or engage the statesman, have our earnest sympathy and willing cooperation. They are all, by turns, discussed in Meliora,' and to each and all we contribute such aid as their relative importance seem to claim, and as our resources can yield. But there is one reform, which seems to us to lie at the threshold or at the foundation of all other reforms, be they social, moral, or political; and which, therefore, has our most cordial and persistent advocacy. We allude to the temperance movement in its various phases, but especially in its national and legislative aspects. It cannot, therefore, fail to be highly gratifying and encouraging to find that the temperance cause is becoming, year by year, more and more distinctly and emphatically recognized by the Social Science Association, and by its noble president, as one of the prominent topics of discourse and discussion at the annual congress. As at Bradford, the previous year, the veteran president, Lord Brougham, in his inaugural address spoke out with emphatic utterance on this great question of national intemperance. But on this occasion the old man eloquent,' not only denounced the 'drink-demon,' but he put the seal of his high appro val upon a specific measure, which promises, if energetically taken up by the legislature, and placed upon the statute book, to remedy and remove that great national curse which for ages has baffled the efforts and mocked the hopes of all social reformers. The Council of the Association set apart one whole day for the consideration of the question of intemperance and its remedies. A number of earnest and carefully-written papers were read and discussed with great attention. The forcible retention of confirmed victims of alcoholic stimulants, in a separate class of inebriate asylums,' was ably advocated; and attention was drawn to the present state of the law, which sends a man to a lunatic asylum during a fit of delirium tremens, but sets Record of Social Politics. sets him at liberty as soon as the violent symptoms have passed away, although it is well known to everybody concerned that the poor patient will succumb to the surrounding temptations, and relapse into delirium after a few weeks' release from restraint. The physiological influence of alcoholic stimulants was ably treated by Dr. Smith, the physician of the Consumption Hospital at Brompton. The leading points brought out were, that alcoholic drinks immediately affect the brain, and produce an injurious effect there, extending rapidly over the whole system, and attacking every vital organ of the system; that alcoholic drinks can never be considered nourishing; and that they do not produce animal heat. Several other excellent papers were read and discussed, including a very able one on the futility and fallacy of the licence system as a means of protecting public morals. The question of Indirect Taxation, its wasteful and burdensome nature, as compared with direct taxation, was elaborately treated before one of the sections of the congress by Duncan M'Laren, Esq. The particular tax referred to by Mr. M'Laren was the duty on spirits; but, unfortunately for the cogency of the argument, one of the objections valid on fiscal grounds had to be admitted as no objection at all on moral grounds. It was argued that every such tax inevitably causes decreased consumption to some extent, and thus lessens the return from the fixed capital previously invested in the trade. It was also admitted by Mr. M'Laren that the increased tax on spirits could be defended on social grounds, as having a tendency to repress intemperance, the great source of poverty and crime.' This tendency of increased duty on spirits to cause a decreased consumption was explicitly denied by Mr. Bright at the meeting of the Financial Reformers at Liverpool about a year ago, when he was breaking the ice for the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's light wine budget. Nor has Mr. Bright ever retracted that political heresy, although it is manifestly contrary to the tenor of all his own teachings, as well as against the fixed creed of his party, and of all political economists of the present age. But other statesmen, on other platforms, have also been speaking to and lecturing the people. Indeed, it may 357 now be said emphatically that the statesman is abroad.' We have had most of the cabinet. ministers addressing the people on social, political, or foreign affairs. At Leeds we have had Lord Palmerston delivering a discourse on ragged schools, and saying: If we rescue from vice and crime a vast number of these unhappy children, who, if left to the hazards and temptations to which their condition exposes them, would become criminals and victims of the law, I say that you will be conferring an enormous benefit upon society.' The premier was reminded, by a gentleman present, that it was better to prevent the necessity for ragged schools; and the fact was officially stated to his lordship that none of the children receiving the benefit of the institution were belonging to teetotal parents. His lordship would, no doubt, reflect upon that statement; but, of course, he will not be willing to relinquish the revenue derived by the state from 'the great source of poverty and crime,' Mr. Gladstone has spoken at Chester on the volunteer movement, commending it on broad if not high grounds of statesmanship, as a preparation for certain possible hostile contingencies. His Grace the Duke of Argyll has been addressing a Manchester audience in the Free Trade Hall. The question dilated upon was non-political, and related to education as connected with the Mechanics' Institutes, &c. The speech was sound, sagacious, and manly, such as befitted the occasion, and reflected honour upon the noble duke, who, with the duchess, during their stay in Manchester, let it be seen and known that they neither drank wine nor strong drink as an ordinary beverage. The President of the Poor Law Board, Mr. Thomas Milner Gibson, has addressed his constituents at Ashton, dwelling very much upon the advantages of the French Treaty, and especially dilating upon the light wines that are coming into the country in such copious streams of beneficence and goodwill from our ancient and national enemy, who has now been converted into a good customer and fast friend. Mr. Gibson did not tell his constituents that the heavy wines of Spain and Portugal are coming in even faster than the lighter qualities of France; and that, indeed, scarcely any |