responds, "Yes." At No. 9447, the Chairman says: "You "allude to the advisability of closing public-houses at an earlier "hour; have you any reasons for knowing what would be the "opinions of the publicans?" He adds "Now they have trouble "with their customers after a certain hour of the night, and would "be glad of an excuse or pretext of law, to close their houses?" Mr HARVEY answers-"I think so." But what other business makes the buyers of its wares so troublesome? What other traders, after profiting by their customers, turn them into the street helpless or uproarious, for other people to be troubled with? To another question, he answers (No. 9405), "I do "not know that I am prepared to suggest that Coffee-houses "should be compelled to close at any given hour." He then states that the Coffee-houses of London are much better conducted than the Public-houses, and that only two out of 196 hold out inducements to females of easy-virtue to act as decoyducks, by allowing them to sit awhile: but that out of 626 public-houses, 51 (or 8 per cent) are badly conducted. "Then," infers the Chairman, "the proportion of good conduct on the part of the Coffee-houses would imply that there was less necessity for their being put under any restriction." The Dublin Police Statistical Tables for 1853, show that in that city, for seven years ending then, there were nine Taverns reported, of which there were four convictions for police violations; Public-houses, 295, of which there were 163 convictions. There were in the city 1,033 retailers of spirits, including 82 Taverns. Of these, 873 are described as regular, 60 as irregular. There were 94 Temperance Coffee-houses, of which 93 are described as regular. These facts, then, point to a great difference between the Traffic in food, and that in Intoxicants: and we are particularly surprised at a Commissioner of Police saying of the London Chop-houses-“It cer"tainly does appear to me to be strange that these persons "should not be authorized to sell spirits and wine, as well as "chops and cutlets." It is Horace, if we remember rightly, that has said, "Thrust Nature out of the door with a fork, and she will fly in at the window "-and the same may be said of Common sense. So Mr DANIEL WHITTLE HARVEY (No. 9464) says: "I think it is desirable, as a matter of regulation, that the Crystal Palace should not be stifled with public-houses.' Truly a Daniel come to judgment,' for who ever thought of applying such an epithet to proper trades and industrial employments? We thank him for the word, as Gratiano thanked the Jew. 66 *When a plain question is put shortly after, he can see a great difference. (No. $405.) "I do not know that I am prepared to suggest that Coffee houses should be compelled to close at any given hour." He assigns as a reason-"Because those who open Coffee-houses conduct themselves well." (No. 9367.) "If Publicans were enjoined to shut up their houses at 12 o'clock on every night, it would greatly aid the preservation of peace and order." Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret. 66 He further says, "I would not give to the laboring community "an excuse to go to the Crystal palace, because Public-houses are at hand. I would not give them the temptation of the alter"native. If I were the Landlord of the neighboring soil, I should "feel disinclined to have my property so dealt with" as to become a tavern site. Now, change Public-house into Chop-house, Bakery, or Confectioner's shop, and see how meaningless the declaration becomes! There is obviously even in the soul of a Commissioner of Police, and a theoretical advocate of laissezfaire, a latent feeling of the peculiarity and danger of the Liquor Traffic, or rather a consciousness that will not hide, that the Traffic stifles morals and intellect, and stirs up disorder and depravity. If the Traffic would not be tolerated on our private estate because of its contaminating influence, why should it be licensed on the National Estate, to send forth its poisonous and stifling exhalations amongst the habitations of our uneducated artizans? If it would stifle' the ends and aims of the great Temple of Esthetic Art and Industry, how much more terrible must be its agency amidst the abodes of toil, in the dark and dirty streets of cities, and in the crowded cottages of the poor, from which are banished so many of those pure, elevating, and preserving influences which should form the glory and ornament of a civilized community? 6 §15. Facts clearly evince a wide difference between Eatinghouses and Drinking-houses (falsely called Victualling-houses). Take from almost any day's paper some of those deplorable and nationally-disgraceful examples of wife-beating,' which have become so common and notorious that an Act of Parliament has been specially framed to meet the case,-an act which fails for the obvious reason that it tampers with effects instead of boldly grasping causes. No man ever sits down to drink with the design of getting his mind so perverted that he will go home and beat his wife, or abuse his children. He sits down with the resolve not again to do that; but he drinks-and does it. The Times before us supplies this case, coming before Mr BROUGHTON. "H. C., charged with assaulting his wife, a very respectably dressed woman, carrying on business as a dress-maker, in Manchester Square. She seemed much distressed while giving her evidence.-Magistrate: What did he do last night to cause you to have him brought here?-Complainant (reluctantly): He was very tipsy, sir, and aimed a blow at my head. He behaves very well when he is sober.-Magistrate: Do you consider that from his conduct you stand in danger of your life?-Complainant: I certainly do, your worship; but I should be sorry to hurt him if he would behave better.-Police-constable 60 D stated that upon being called into the house, the defendant told him that if he did not quit the place directly, he would blow his brains out with a pistol.-Ordered to find bail." Here we have a case in which a perfect madman is made by the Traffic, who endangers the lives of two citizens, and might, in such a state, commit other atrocities-yet the Trafficker is held guiltless! A provincial paper, the Sunderland News, for March 10, 1855, supplies two examples of assaults upon women. "R. L., for assaulting Mrs F. W.-Fined 40s. or to go to Durham Gaol [at the public cost] for two months." "J. F., for seriously assaulting Mrs M. H. on the head with a pokerFined 20s. and costs, or go to gaol for one month.-Complainant: He was drunk at the time, or he would not have done it. He's a good man when the drink's not in him." Is there not a vast difference evinced in such instances between Eating-houses and Drink-shops? Did Mr WHITTLE HARVEY ever hear any of the women in the Police Court say, in palliation of the conduct of their assailants, "He behaves very well when he has not been to the Cook's-shop or the Coffee-house"? or, "He's a good man when the mutton chop or the veal cutlet is not in him"? § 16. The mischievous tendency of the Traffic, whether free or regulated, and whether in wine, ale, cider, or spirit drinking countries, is incontestibly proved both by ancient and modern History. At Athens, in the palmiest days of ancient Greece, Taverns were deemed such disreputable places, that not even a servant, with any pretence to morality, dare be seen eating or drinking in them. PLATO, in his model laws, puts the following language into the mouth of a Lacedæmonian :- "That whereby men chiefly fall into the greatest luxuries, insolence, and all sorts of moral madness, our laws have effectually rooted out of our country. You shall, neither in villages nor towns belonging to the Spartan State, see any such things as Drinking-Clubs, or their usual consequences." A Tavern is simply a house for the encouragement and accommodation of such a 'Club.' The LawBook of the Ante-Nicene Church has the following as its 54th canon: "If any one of the Clergy be taken eating in a Tavern, let him be suspended, except when he is forced to bait at an Inn upon the road." (See § 38-§ 46.) The same truth is proved by an examination of such Continental countries as have left the Traffic either free or with few restrictions and it still holds good (even where social arrangements preclude pauperism), that madness and crime abundantly spring out of it. : §17. LORD ACTON (now Cardinal), when Supreme Judge of Rome, assured Mr E. C. DELAVAN, while on a visit to the "Eternal City,' that nearly all the crime in Rome originated in the use of wine. He directed me to that part of Rome which would well compare, says Mr Delavan, with the Five Points in New York: "I visited that district, and there I saw men, women, and children, sitting in rows, swilling away at wine, making up in quantity what was wanting in strength; and such *Isocrates, Areopag. p. 354. + Plato, de Legibus. Book i. was the character of the inmates of those dens of debauchery, that my guide urged my immediate departure as I valued my life. "And to-morrow," said LORD ACTON, "I shall be obliged to ❝condemn to death a man who went direct from one of these dens to his home, where, under the influence of wine, he butchered "his mother and his wife. And this man, when not under this "malign influence, was a most kind-hearted son, husband, and "father."* Several Italian physicians and authors refer to Intemperance as but too common. GIACOMINI Complains, in strong terms, of its rapidly increasing evils.† SPERANZA states his own experience of the large proportion of diseases of the digestive organs that are owing to the use of Spirits, and quotes PERRONE, of Naples, as to the frequent and fatal maladies that follow drunkenness among the lower classes. § 18. JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY has the following memorandum as to the condition of things in free Switzerland :: 66 Berne, 7th mo., 30th, 1843. I have visited the Prison, and was kindly favored with an opportunity of addressing about 480 prisoners. 480 criminals for a Canton containing 400,000 inhabitants (1 in 800) is too large a proportion, and all this in spite of schools, pastors, and catechetical formal knowledge of religion, which is general even among the mountaineers. secret which explains the phænomenon, is the prevalence of drunkenness. So much for even the 'light wines' of the continent!"|| The A fact on which we stumbled in M. QUETELET'S celebrated book on Man, is enough of itself to dissipate the notion of the Light-wine Legislators of our Parliament, who seem to have forgotten that when those wines were used in England, in the 14th and 15th centuries, at a price so low as 25s. per tun, they occasioned the most disgraceful intemperance. The passage abridged ishere : "Of 2927 murders committed in France during the space of "four years, 446 have been in consequence of quarrels and con"tentions in Taverns. "T The truth is, that where Taverns are permitted, the vice of drinking tends to increase, and the lighter beverages of wine and cider in due time create an appetite for the stronger, such as beer and brandy. There is nothing in the social condition of our neighbors which can at all recommend their wine drinking, or show its superiority to our cider counties. They annually *See Hilliard's Six Months in Italy, to the same effect. Even while we write, September, 1855, the Daily News records the serious danger incurred by the Pope, through the mad driving of two viciously excited coachmen. +Trattato Filosofico-sperimentale del Soccorsi Terapeutici: Opere iv. p. 399. Padua, 1853. Storie e Riflessione: Raccolta di Opere Mediche Moderne Italiene, t. v. p. 244. Life. Vol. ii. p. 472. ¶ Sur l'homme et le développment de ses facultés. t. iii. c. 3. consume one thousand millions of gallons of wine, cider, and brandy, or above forty gallons to each person, children and adults included! This, at the lowest computation, will be equal to five gallons of alcohol, circulating each year in the blood of every adult, disturbing the brain, and perverting the passions of the soul.* Now let us look at co-existing facts. Between the years 1826 and 1843, the increase of population was at the rate of seven per cent, but the increase of crime was as follows: This record, fearfully large as it is, contains only those crimes which have been proved upon individuals; and if to these be added those which have never come to light, or which have not been successfully investigated, the per centage must be swelled to an almost incredible degree.† The statistics of France in suicides show an alarming increase in this kind of amusement. From 1820 to 1830 (ten years), the number of suicides was 1,765; from 1841 to 1843 (three years), 2,573; in 1844 (one year), 2,900! M. LE CLERC remarks of the Sound' French Wines :"The women and children taste none of it; the laborers leave their work, and derange their means, to drink irregularly, without the barriers of the towns, the wine which would be taxed the moment it enters within the walls, and, at a distance from their homes, transform into drunken debauch the time which should have been spent in profitable labor." The Salut Public, of Lyons (September, 1855), announces that a Temperance Society, on the plan of those existing in England, is in course of organization. The society proposes to build, on the Plain du Lac, a kind of lazaretto, especially intended for the conversion of drunkards, and the correction of children already addicted to that vice. Wine and spirits to be completely interdicted, but the inmates to be fed with meat, rice, and vegetables. There is not so much riotous or dead drunkenness on the Continent as here, but there is more universal drinking, and quite as much of that drinking most to be feared-that perpetual steeping of the system in excitement which inevitably ends in crime, "The alcohol drunk in France is equal to about twice the quantity per head which is used in Great Britain."-Dr BELL, on Regimen and Longevity.-1850. + The crimes which increased the most are precisely those which we know to be most likely to flow from perverted feeling and hardened moral sensibility. D |