Sunday Drinking in Scotland.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 153, 8 May 1886, Page 4

Sunday Drinking in Scotland.

A Parliamentary return issued on Saturday with regard to the conviction of persons arrested for drunkenness on Sunday in Scotland is one of those documents which, taken alone, is likely to prove utterly misleading. One of the objects of the return was to show that the Forbes-Mackenzie ' Act, which is supposed to stop the Sunday sale of intoxicating liquors in Scotland, encourages private and illicit drinking. To some extent these premises are borne out by figure*, which show that in the year ending September, 1885, there were 2,243 convictions for Sunday drunkenness in Scotland. When it is remembered that that country has a population of 3f millions, the offence does not appear very ' alarming It seems that in different burghs different views prevail as to the arrest of offenders for drunkenness ; and in a note appended to the return Mr Jamieson explains that, as regards many districts, the figures give no idea of the number of persons chargeable wifh the offence. The question whether prohibition prohibits has been lately exercising American politicianßj and the result of the official returns in the state of Maine is to show that convictions both for selling liquor and for drunkenness are steadily on the increase. There is no relative comparison instituted by the Scotch statistics, which simply serve to show that a considerable amount of drunkenness prevails on Sunday, although the legal presumption is that no liquor is procurable on that day north of the Tweed,