DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 182, 22 September 1876, Page 13

DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME IN ENGLAND.

England boasts that it is a Protestant country, and from time to time our Protestant friends refer admiringly to its condition as an example of what Protestantism can do in the way of " enlightening" peoples and promoting morality. Now all must admit that sobriety is a virtue, and that drunkenness is not only wrong in itself , but is also the fruitful parent of other evils; and judging England by this test, Protestants will have to cease extolling the superior morality of the people of England

The Montreal ' True Witness ' has recently taken the trouble to gather some statistics upon the subject, taken mainly from the " Blue-Books" of the English G-overnment, and they are absolutely startling, revealing as they do, a most fearful amount of drunkenness and crime in England and a continuous increase of both. in the five years succeeding 1820, the police reports show 65,000 cases of crime. But in the five years succeeding 1870, the police reports record 406,000 cases of crime. Between these periods of time the population of England almost doubled, but the number of crimes, where convictions were reached, increased sixfold. This is the proportion of convictions or ascertained crimes. And the facts reported in the Government statistics show that the increase of offences committed, but wherj the criminal escaped, is still greater. The ' True Witness ' pertinently remarks : " This is, indeed somewhat lively picture for the Progres sionists, and an ugly, fact for the Darwinites. It is literally going down to the dogs with a vengeance, rather than being improved from the dog upwards." What gives the more point to these words is that this period is one of the most marked in English history for material progress and of the spread of " Liberal" ideas. Side by side, and step by step, Liberalism and Crime have moved onwards in England, as is the case, indeed, in every other country infested with Liberal ideas. But the statistics in regard to the use of intoxicating liquors reveal still more clearly the "progress" of England in morality. "In the year 1829 there were in England 50,000 places where intoxicating liquors were sold ; whereas forty years later, there were 135,000, and the probability is, that at the present time there are at least 150,000." Nor does this statement include the whole increase of drinking places. For no account is taken in it of grocers' license to sell intoxicating liquors. The strength, too, and the character of the liquors drank have changed greatly for the worse. Fifty years ago the chief liquor sold was beer; but this is not so now. The following figures will show the nature and extent of the change that has taken place : "In the five years ecding witn 1824, as compared with the five years ending with 1874, the population increased 88 per cent., the consumption of beer increased 92 per cent., and of British spirits, 237 per cent. ; of foreign spirits, 132 per cent., and of wine, 250 per cent." This shows clearly that the increase of liquors consumed was mainly those which are most highly intoxicating and deleterious. The ' True Witness,' in the article referred to, also furnishes some figures which show the relative aggregates of the leading industries of England md of the consumption of liquor by its people. The aggregate capital invested in the iron, cotton and woollen trades is about six hundred million dollars, but seven hundred millions is the amount invested in the manufacture of liquors in England. And this is not all. " Seven hundred millions invested must give at least 25 per cent, interest to pay wear and tear, and a remunerative return on capital invested. This sum (eight hundred and five millions) must again give at least 25 per cent, to the tavern-keeper for wear and tear, and rent and remuneration. Here then we have upwards of one thousand million dollars poured down the enlightened Englishman's throat every year." We are confronted, too, with the astounding fact that in enlightened England the amount of capital invested in the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors exceeds by two-thirds the total amounts of capital invested in the iron, cotton and woollen trades, added together. — ' Catholic Standard.'