The Drink Traffic in England and America.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 111, 18 July 1885, Page 5

The Drink Traffic in England and America.

If the consumption of drink is decreasing, the consumption is still unreasonably large. According to Mr Childers's figures, about eighteen millions and a quarter, or nearly one-fourth of the entire revenue, is still received in the shape of duties from spirits alone. From fermented and spirituous liquors the revenue is £29,800,000, or more than one-third of the entire revenue. Of the forty -four millions received from articles of general consumption this enormous sum is received from liquors. Although thegeneral consumption of liquor has decreased, it may be doubted whether the consumption has decreased among the classes which drink to excess A drinking census has lately been taken in London. For the purposes of the census a representative district was selected in each quarter of the metropolis, and the visits to the public-houses were made between the hours of nine and twelve on a Saturday night In one district fifty houses were visited, and during the three hours the fifty houses were entered by about thirty thousand persons. In a second \ district forty- nine houses were visited, and during the three hours these had about twenty-two thousand custoraeis, In a third district forty-nine houses were visited, and these were patronised by about fourteen thousand persons. Altogether, there were two hundred houses visited, and during the three hours the two hundred public-houses had 86,608 customers, or between four and five hundred a-piece. The saddest part of the business was that, of the total of eighty-six thousand, more than thirty thousand were women, and more than seven thousand children. The darkest feature of the English drink traffic is that, whatever decrease of drunkenness there may be in the community generally, of late years there has been an indisputable increase of it among women. Another drink census revealed the fact that in a single London parish 1,250 women entered twelve public houses between the hours of ten and twelve on a single Monday morning, A sadder record than this it would be difficult to find. Such a fact would be sufficient to explain a long list of wife- beatings and desertions. It will also showthat, although the prospects of reformers are encouraging, their work is hardly begun. In thirty-two out of thirty eight of the United States we wore told a short time ago there is a local- option law, and one that is working successfully. The statistics, however, do not show that the law is greatly reducing the drink consumption. "As for beer and whisky," our New York correspondent told us on Monday, "Mr David A. Wells recently computed that the nation annually9pendaforthat474,B23,ooodollars," The number of dollars, we need hardly say, means nearly £100,000,000, and the count) y that spends that sum on beer and whisky alone can hardly be said to be on the evo of a temperance millennium. The truth seems to be that while the consumption of drink is decreasing in England, it is increasing in America. Between 1878 and 1882, says Mr Mulhall, the internal revenue of the United States from fermented liquors increased from nine million dollars to sixteen millions. The House of Lords Committee on intemperance came to the conclusion that there was no necessary, and that in many instances there was no actual, connection between the increase of drunkenness and the multiplication of public houses. The Committee found that some districts which had the most drunkenness had the fewest public house 3, and that districts that were remarkable for the smallnesB of the number of their public-houses were also remarkable for their drunkenness. The greater sobriety in England is mainly the result of the spread of sanitation and I of education. The standard of sobriety is higher because the tone of public opinion is raised. It is pointed out that it is in the poorer districts of London that the largest numberof women frequent the public-houses. If drink leads to misery, it is itself the result of misery.