MODERN DRUNKENNESS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 321, 23 April 1875, Page 4

MODERN DRUNKENNESS.

We are not to suppose, however, that the undue resort to stimulants is exclusively to be found among the working classes. Attention has been called to a practice, not unfrequent in commercial life, m which the excitement of business fosters a habit of resorting, during the morning hours, to wine and other stimulants, pften leading ultimately to the loss of selfcontrol, and to the predominance of a .craving for intoxicating drink. The same habits have gained ground in America: ' they afe the perils which arise from dance qf wealth, on the one hand, and the exciting spirit in which business is often carried on, on the other. We have heard of ' drawing-room alcoholism; ' of the habit of young women of the upper classes drinking a small quantity of scent before going into society, because it gives agreeable stimulus to the animal spirits, but really proves the first step to utter debasement and loathsome drunkenness. Strange to say, forty years ago, wise statesmen and political economists imagined that the cure was to be found in declaring a perfectly free trade in liquor. This was the origin of the Beer Act, which has caused more ruin and demoralisation to the lower t classes than any other measure of our day. There was an expectation that the beerehops, first opened in 1830. would draw men away from the consumption of ardent spirits; but they caused an immense increase of drunkenness ; so much so that Parliament refused to extend the Act to Ireland, and Lord Brougham, ten years later, moved the total repeal of the mischievous measure. Various causes prevented the abolition ot the beer-shops, jyjiich continued to demoralise the people. .Sidney Smith said at the time:—" The new beer-bill has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those who are not singing are sprawling. The sovereign people are in a beastly state." Up .till the passing of Selwyn-Ibbetson's Act, in 1869, the beer-shops enjoyed the privilege of free trade, for their owners required no licence from the magistrates and had merely to do with the Excise department ; and }t was not found that their respectability, or the purity of the mixtures sold in them, were maintained by the force of competition. In fsct, adulteration flourished in them quite as much as in the public houses, and they were certainly more noxious as centres of vice and disorder. No statesman will ever again: declare a free trado in liquor. The question rather is, Will any stateman ever advance to the other extreme, and pass a prohibitory law, abolishing the whole traffic ? The prospect is at present extremely improbable. Within Parliament, as we all know, the principle of the House of Commons is to avoid large or sweeping measures; but without Parliament, nothing but large measures are proposed ; as, for example, by the United Kingdom Alliance, whose members are numerous, wealthy, and influential, butj above all things, impatient of all mere regulated monopolies, as well as of all routine and compromise, and specially eager for the adoption of wholesale restrictions. They urge that tho renewal of a licence to pell intoxicating drink is within the standding discretion of the licensing authorities, but that the decision of these authorities, ?n each case and on each renewal, should be governed by the result of a popular vote In other words, where two-thirds of the householders in a given district are opposed to the granting of licenses, the magistrates should not grant them. This is the Permissive Bill. If we understand the .object of this organisation, and if it has any surp foundation, two-thirds of the populajation in any British town must be so convinced of the duty of sobriety and the evils pf drunkenness that they would, if permitted, suppress the very means of intemperance. ' But it proposes tp accomplish by a restrictive law what any member of the Alliance, or any man of the censtitbr ency for which they are so solicitous, might do for himself on Hib own-mere motion'at any moment of his life. Why, upon this necessary assumption, should not any two • thirds of the body at once act upoh their convictions, without an interference which, if cpnrenient to them, must be oppresive to others ? Nobody is compelled to spend ar farting in drink unless he pleases; and the evils of a clandestine traffic in liquor would in eome respects surpass those which Jiave ppi iifig up under a regulated trade. -—'Edinburgh Review.'