u n^ ^ J^^ *f?-; ^ ^^^ "^*^ THE DRINK TRAFFIC AND ITS EVILS : AN URGENT PLEA FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION. By WILLIAM HOYLE, AUTHOR OF "OUR NATIONAL RESOURCES, AND HOW THEY ARE WASTED," ETO. iPRiOE onsTE r>EiTisr"sr- MANCHESTER : JOHN HEYWOOD, DEANSGATE AND RIDGEFIELD ; THE UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE, JOHN DALTON STREET. LONDON : JOHN HEYWOOD, 11, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS; ALLIANCE OFFICES, 52, PARLIAMENT STREET ; ' NATIONAL TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION DEPOT, 337, STRAND. 18S2. / The Drink Traffic and its Evils : an Urgent Plea for Legislative Action. DURING the twelve years ending 1881 — that is, from 1870 to 1881 inclusive — the amount of money spent upon intoxicating liquors in the United Kingdom was £1,609,241,534, being an average of £134,103,461 per annum. In 1870 the amount thus spent was £118,836,284, and the expenditure rapidly rose until in 1876 it reached £147,288,669, the highest amount ever reached. After 1876 it dechned, and last year — 1881 — it had fallen to £127,074,460. Taking the population of the United Kingdom as averaging 33,000,000 during the period referred to, it gives a yearly expenditure of £4 Is. 3:^d. per head for the entire population, or a total for the twelve years for each individual of £48 15s. 3d. If we take the expenditure by families, and reckon five persons for each house, it gives a yearly family expenditure upon drink of £20 6s. 4jd., or a total for the twelve years of £243 16s. 3d. The National Debt of the United Kingdom in 1881 was £768,703,692; and the value of the railways of the United King- dom, reckoning them according to the money invested in them, was £728,621,657; so that, during the twelve years ending 1881, the people of the United Kingdom have spent as much money in intoxicating liquors as would have paid off our entire National Debt and bought up all the railways, and left £112,000,000 to spare. The rent paid for houses in the United Kingdom is about £70,000,000 per annum ; the money spent yearly upon woollen goods is about £46,000,000, and upon cotton goods £14,000,000 giving a total of £130,000,000 ; so that we have spent upon intoxicating drinks each year during the last twelve years as much as the total amount of the house rental of of the United Kingdom, plus the money spent in woollen and cotton goods, and leaving upwards of £4,000,000 to spare. The total rental of the agricultural land of Great Britain is estimated at about £48,000,000 yearly, and of Ireland at about £12,000,000, so that every year during the past twelve years we have drunk nearly three times the farm rental of Great Britain, or over eleven times the farm rental of Ireland. The value of the bread consumed annually in the United King- dom is estimated at £70,000,000. Mr. Caird estimates the value of the butter and cheese consumed yearly at £27,500,000, and that of milk at £26,000,000, so that we have spent as much upon intoxica- ting liquors each year during the past twelve years as upon bread, butter, cheese, and milk, and leaving £10,000,000 yearly to spare. The extent of the liquor traffic may be judged of by the fact that whilst there are about 6,600,000 houses in the United Kingdom, more than 180,000 of them are houses where intoxicating liquors are sold, being one house out of every 36 throughout the entire country. If these houses were all concentrated in one town, the town would be more than twice the size of Manchester. If we supposed the houses to be all situated in one street, and reckoned each house to have a frontal of 12 yards, we should have a street, with houses on both sides, more than 600 miles long ; it would more than reach from Land's End in Cornwall to John O'Groats at the North of Scotland. Let us briefly consider some of the results of this traffic, and, 1st. Waste op Food : Intoxicating liquors are manufactured out of grain, or other agricultural produce, which, if not thus used, would be available for food. To manufacture the £134,000,000 worth of intoxicating liquors consumed during each of the past 12 years, 80,000,000 bushels of grain, or its equivalent in produce has been destroyed each year ; and, taking the bushel of barley at 531b., it gives us 4,240,000,0001b. of food destroyed year by year, or a total for the 12 years of 960,000,000 bushels or 50,880,000,0001b. The generally accepted estimate of grain consumed as bread food by the population of the United Kingdom is 5i bushels per head per annum ; if this be so, then, the food which has been destroyed to manufacture the intoxicating liquors which have been consumed in the United Kingdom during the past 12 years would supply the entire population with bread for four years and five months ; or, it would give a 41b. loaf of bread to every family in the United Kingdom daily during the next six years. If the grain and produce which have thus been destroyed yearly were converted into flour and baked into loaves, they would make 1,200,000,000 41b. loaves. To bake these loaves it would require 750 bakeries producing 500 loaves each hour, and working 10 hours daily during the whole year. An acre of fairly good land is estimated to yield about 38 bushels of barley. If this be so, then, to grow the grain to manufacture the £134,000,000 worth of liquor which has been consumed yearly, it would take a cornfield of more than 2,000,000 acres, or, it would cover the entire counties of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, and Berkshire. 2nd. Intemperance. — It is somewhat difficult to get accurate statistics of the apprehensions for drunkenness in the United Kingdom, but the returns show that there must have been at least 300,000* yearly. Taking these figures as our basis, it will follow that the total apprehensions for drunkenness during the past twelve years have been 3,600,000, or, equal to above one-tenth of the entire population. Painful and melancholy as these published returns of drunkenness are, it is feared that they give but a faint idea .as to the extent to which the e-vil exists in the country. In a speech made by Joseph Chamberlain, Esq., M.P. (now the President of the Board of Trade), in the House of Commons on the 13th of March, 1877, he stated that "During three hours of one Saturday evening, thirty-five public-houses in different parts of Birmingham were watched, and during those three hours there were a total of 838 drunken persons alleged to have been seen coming out of these thirty -five houses." In Birmingham there are 1,839 drink- shops ; and yet, although there were 838 persons reported as coming drunk during three hours out of the thirty-five houses watched, the police reports give only 29 cases of drunkenness astsoming from all the 1,839 houses during the whole of the day. If the remainder of the drinkshops in Birmingham gave an equal proportion of drunkards with the 35 houses which were watched, it would give 44,136 cases of drunkenness for three hours of Saturday evening in Birmingham alone, instead of 29 for theVhole day as reported by the police. If, however, we regard the 35 houses as somewhat exceptional, and reckon the 1,839 houses as supplying during the entire day half the number reported in the 35 for the three hours, it will still give upwards of 22,000 cases of drunkenness as against only 29 reported by the police. If the condition of things described by Mr. Chamberlain may be accepted as indicating in any degree the condition of things throughout the country — and we fear it does — the picture of the nation's intemperance becomes one that is too appalling to paint ; but that such a condition of things should exist is the most potent reason which can be assigned why the Legislature should promptly and effectively deal with the cause of such appalling evils ; and why every citizen should range himself on the side of those who are seek- ing to do battle with the evils deplored. * These figures do not include the punishments for drunkenness in the army, which last year (1881) numbered 43,656. 3rd. Pauperism. — The published return of pauperism for Jan- uary 1st, 1881, which is the last complete return issued, shows that on that day there were 1,011,339 persons in receipt of parish relief. Mr. Purdy, who is at the head of the statistical department of the Poor Law Board, states that the number of applications for rehef during a year are 3i times the number which are upon the books at one time during the year ; this will give a total of applications for parish relief during 1881 of 3,539,686, or about one in ten of the entire population. Those who have much to do with the poorer class population of the country will know, that there are at least as many people constantly upon the verge of pauperism, as there are who apply for parish relief; if this be so, it will follow that over 7,000,000 of the population of the country are constantly on the verge of destitution, or, about one-fifth of the entire population of the country. Statistics are sometimes quoted to show that of late years pauperism has materially declined ; but those who quote these statistics do not look at the entire facts of the case. They do not tell us, for instance, how paupers are compelled by guardians to go into the workhouse or be cut off from relief: they do not inform, us that whilst in England and Wales, in 1853, there were only 104,186 indoor paupers — that is, paupers in workhouses — in 1880 there were 189,304; and that whilst in the former year the amount actually paid in relief to the poor was only £4,939,064, in 1880 it was £8,045,010, being the largest amount ever paid for poor relief during one year in the history of the country. 4th. Crime. As with pauperism, so it is with crime. It often happens that attempts are made to make it appear that during the last thirty or forty years there has been a diminution in the crime of the country, but those who speak or write thus only prove what an imperfect acquaintance they have with the facts of the case. In the registered returns of the crime of the country, there are two departments, viz. — 1st. That which is called indictable crime, and is dealt with by judges at assizes ; and, 2nd, that which is dealt with by magistrates summarily in petty sessions. Now those who write or speak about the diminution of crime quote only the returns which deal with indictable crime ; they ignore what is dealt with by the magistrates, and they omit to notice the fact that owing to repeated changes in the law many offences which forty years ago were sent on to the assizes and treated as indictable crimes, are now adjudicated upon by the magistrates, and do not now find their way mto the published criminal returns of the country as they formerly did. Let us take for illustration the years 1840 and 1879. In 184^0 the number of cases of indictable crime given in the published returns was 19,927 ; in 1879 they are given as 12,585 ; but there were 27,720 cases of crime dealt with by the magistrates in 1879, which in the year 1840, before the changes took place in the law, were classed among the indictable crimes of the countiy, and therefore, to make the com- parison truthful, the 27,726 cases must be added to the 12,585. This would give 40,311 cases of crime in 1879 as compared with 19,927 cases in 1840, showing an increase of 102 per cent, in the crime ot the country, although the population had only increased 60 per cent. Complete returns of crime of all kinds were not published prior to 1857, and for a year or two the returns were defective. I will, therefore, take the figures for the year 1860. That year the total cases of crime which came before the magistrates in England and Wales were 255,803, but in 1878 they numbered 538,232. In 1860 the Drink Bill was £84,000,000, whilst in 1878 it was £142,000,000. The Drink Bill had thus gone up 70 per cent, but crime had risen 110 per cent. In 1879 the Drink Bill fell to .£128,000,000, and cases of crime went down to 506,000. During the last five years (ending 1880) the total number of cases of crime which have come before the magistrates in the whole of the United Kingdom slightly exceeded 850,000 yearly. Of these there were about 300,000 cases of drunkenness, and over 180,000 cases of assault. Cases of theft, vagrancy, &c., also figare largely. It is true that there are some crimes of a minor character, such as breaches of Highway Acts, offences against the Education Act, &c., but even these are very largely the result of intemperance, for sober parents seldom, if ever, need to be summoned for neglecting to send their children to school. 5th. Vagrancy. — In regard to vagrancy there are no reliable returns published. The number of vagrants relieved on the first day of January is given ; but the absurdity of the return thus published as illustrating the extent of vagrancy will be seen when I state that the Government return of vagrants for all England and Wales for the year 1870 (January 1st) is 5,430, whereas in the Bury Union alone, where I reside, the vagrants relieved that year numbered 15,474. Commenting upon the increase of vagrancy, the Timcs^ in a leader Oct. 31, 1881, observed, that "thirty years ago it was estimated that there were 200.000 people in this island without local habitation." 8 But during the last thirty years the demoralised element in the nation has largely increased, and to-day the vagrant population of the country cannot be less than 300,000. The Times remarks : " The amount of depredation done by these people, reckoning what they get by begging, and what by pilfering, picking, and stealing, must be enormous, indeed equivalent to a large army living amongst us." I should like to know how many of those " without a local habita- tion " are abstainers ? 6th. Lunacy. — The number of lunatics in asylums and work- houses in the United Kingdom will be slightly over 100,000, besides many not in asylums. In England and Wales, in the year 1860, there were 38,038, but in 1880 they had increased to 71,191, being nearly double, although the population had only increased 28 per cent. 7th. Deaths. — At the Social Science Congress held at Brighton in 1875, Dr. Richardson made the following statement: "I do not over-estimate the facts when I say that, if such a miracle could be performed in England as a general conversion to temperance, the vitality of the nation would rise one-third in value." In the United Kingdom there are on the average about 700,000 deaths yearly ; one-third of which is 233,000. So that, accepting Dr. Richardson's estimate, the drinking habits of the country are respon- sible for upwards of 230,000 deaths yearly. I will, however, divide his estimate, and put the annual deaths caused Jay drinking at 120,000. These are figures which have been shown by Dr. Norman Kerr to be beyond serious dispute. 8th. Indirect Losses. — In the figures which I have quoted relating to the monetary cost of our drinking habits, I have only given ,the money directly spent upon the drink; but this is only part of the loss, for these habits of drinking lead to loss of labour, to deterioration of workmen, to accidents, disease, and pre- mature deaths. There is a loss of money arising from the idleness of paupers, criminals, vagrants, and lunatics, and from the unproductive labour of judges, magistrates, policemen, gaolers, &c. There are all the taxes incident to pauperism, crime, &c. There is destruction of property and health both by sea and by land, and in many other ways the drinking habits of the country operate to entail burdens and losses upon the community. Careful calculations touching the aggregate extent of these losses show that the indirect cost and losses resulting from drinking, equal in amount the money directly spent upon the drink. Adding these together, it gives an average yearly lose of wealth to the nation during the past 12 years of £268,000,000. Having regard to the fact that there are £30,000,000 of revenue derived from the drink traffic, I will knock off the <£68j000,000, and assess the cost and loss at £200,000,000 yearly; or, for the 12 years, £2,400,000,000. Mr. Giffen, of the Board of Trade, in his book, " Essays in Finance," estimates the value of the landed property of the country when capitalised at £2,007,330,000, so that the cost and losses which during the last 1 2 years have been entailed upon the nation by our drinking habits have been equal to the total value of the land of the country, and leaving nearly £400,000,000 to spare. During the last eighteen months, the time of Parliament has mainly been occupied in discussing the Land Bill for Ireland, the Repression of Crime Bill, or the intended Arrears Bill for the same country; all of these being due to the alleged overcharge in the rental of Irish farms. The Land Bill may possibly affect the country financially to the extent of from £2,500,000 to £3,000,000 yearly, whilst the Arrears Bill, according to Mr. Gladstone, will deal once and for all with £2,000,000 arrears ; and so, putting the two bills together, they will involve some £5,000,000 or thereabouts this year, and about £3,000,000 yearly hereafter. And every fortnight whilst these discussions in Parliament have been going on, the drink traffic has taken £5,000,000 out of the pockets of the people. In the case of Ireland, it is a question as to whether the money ought to be in the pockets of the landlords or of the tenants ; but in the case of the drink money it is a case of absolute waste, nay, worse than waste ; for, if the money were thrown into the sea and so wasted, nothing beyond the loss would come of it; but, applied as it is, it produces intemperance, pauperism, crime, lunacy, disease, and leads to 120,000 premature deaths annually; it further floods the country with domestic and social misery and demoral- isation to an appalling extent, and it blocks the nation's path in progress of every kind. In conclusion I will briefly epitomise the evils of the liquor traffic : — 1st. It entails a cost and loss to the nation's wealth of some £200,000,000, or equal to one-fifth of the nation's entire income from all sources. 2nd. It imposes upon the country an army of some 700,000 habitual drunkards, and 1,000,000 occasional drunkards, producing over 2,000,000 cases of drunkenness every week in the year. 3rd. It causes over 3,000,000 of the population of the country to 10 have to apply for parish relief yearly, and it occasions at least anothei 3,000,000 to be constantly living on the verge of destitution. 4th. It leads to 700,000 cases of crime being brought annually before our courts of justice, and induces a further undetected mass oi crime that cannot be measured. 5th. It so greatly demoralises the population of our country as tc cause some 300,000 of them to lapse into habits of vagrancy ; or, af the Times said, to "live without a local habitation," and "begging, picking, pilfering, and stealing," being " equivalent to a large army living at free quarters among us." But, I would say, worse than an army, for they not only live upon us and so consume our material wealth, but they are centres and sources of danger, vice, and demoralisation to the entire community. 6th. It entails upon the country some 60,000 or 70,000 lunatics, in many cases not brought to this condition by their own misdeeds, but by the misdeeds of others ; — it may be their parents, or perhaps it is owing to the suffering and sorrow inflicted upon them by the misconduct of others. 7th and lastly, we have 120,000 premature deaths annually, many of them drunkards themselves, who, after dragging along years of misery, are cut off, often in a manner to fill the soul with sadness and horror. And then there are the parents, and wives, and children, maybe brothers and sisters of drunkards, who are ill-treated and punished, perhaps starved and famished, and who ultimately succumb to the cruelty and neglect they have to endure. It may assist the reader to form some slight conception of the awful results which flow from the liquor traffic if we try to give e. bird's-eye view of the same, with its surroundings. I have already stated that if the drinkshops of the United King- dom were placed end to end they would form a street stretching from Land's End in Cornwall to John o' Groat's at the north of Scotland, over 640 miles. Let us suppose the street, along with its needful appendages, formed ; what would the picture be like ? In the first place, to grow the 80,000,000 bushels of grain or produce necessary to manufacture the .£134,000,000 worth of drink which has yearly been consumed since 1870, a cornfield would be needed stretching two and a half miles on each side of the street — that is, a cornfield five miles wide and stretching the whole length from Land's End to John o' Groat's. Let the reader imagine such a cornfield, so wide, and stretching 640 miles in length, and think 11 of all the grain produced from it being destroyed in manufacturing intoxicating liquors. Suppose we started from Land's End along the street. On the right hand side every quarter of a mile there would be a brewery, every three-quarters of a mile there would be a malt manufactory, and every two miles a distillery. On the left hand side of the street every three-quarters of a mile there would be a large union workhouse, in which to lodge indoor- paupers who had been impoverished by drinking, and, in addition, a row of houses the whole length of the street for outdoor paupers. When we had proceeded two miles there would be a reformatory or industrial school for the reclamation of young criminals. Having gone two miles further, there would be a huge county gaol to lodge adult criminals ; and two miles further a monster lunatic asylum. These detached establishments would all be repeated at similar distances from end to end of the street. Let us suppose the whole of this population to be turned out into the street— 1,000,000 paupers, 700,000 drunkards, say 300,000 criminals, 300,000 vagrants, and say 70,000 lunatics. If these were placed three abreast and two yards apart they would form a procession which would reach the whole length of the street from Land's End to John o' Groat's. What an exhibition for Christian England ! — drunkards, reeling or sprawling in the gutter, some with black eyes and bloody noses, some cursing and swearing, others fighting, others jibbering away like maniacs. And there would be the hardened criminal, the degraded tramp, the starved pauper and the raving lunatic. What a procession of misery, vice, and degradation it would be, and stretching from one end of the kingdom to the other ! But there would be another procession necessary, and, if possibloj one even still more awful and heartrending. I have said that 120,000 premature deaths occur yearly through drink. Let us picture the dead being carried along the street to their last resting-places, and supposing each funeral procession extended twenty yards, then there would be a procession of funerals 640 miles long. Let us try to realize it — drunkards and paupers, and criminals, and vagrants, and lunatics forming a procession from Land's End to John o' Groat's ; and, along side of it, a procession of funerals stretching the same length carrying the slain to their graves. What a scene there was in the House of Commons some years ago, when Mr. Plimsoll, with all the enthusiasm of his nature, pleaded so earnestly and powerfully for the shipwrecked seamen of 12 our land. But there were only from 700 to 800 of those who annually lost their lives, whereas through the drink traffic more than double that number are cut off every week. In Ireland, during the year 1881, there were 17 persons met their death through agrarian crimes ; but through the liquor traffic more than 17 persons came to a premature grave every two hours both day and night throughout the year. The great end of Government is to protect the lives of its people, to promote trade and commerce, to reduce pauperism, to redress crime, and to ensure tlie moral, social, and domestic happiness and prosperity of those under its authority ; and therefore a Government which can lend its sanction to a traffic entailing such misery and ruin upon its people violates every principle of duty. But are not we, as a people, equally to blame ? The energy of the demand of a people for the redress of an evil should be in proportion to the mischiefs resulting from the evil, and the good which would follow its removal. Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister, in a speech in the House of Commons, March 5th, 1880, stated : — " It has been said that greater calamities are inflicted on mankind by intemperance than by the three great historical scourges — war, pesti- lence, and famine. That is true for us, but not true for Europe, and civilised countries in general — certainly not for Italy, for Spain, and for Portugal, and I believe that for France and Germany it may not be ; but it is true for us, and it is the measure of our discredit and disgrace." Those who have read the facts contained in this paper will agree with me that Mr. Gladstone's remarks touching this country were not exaggerations, but stern, deplorable truths. What then is the moral of these appalling truths? It is this, that with one united and irresistible voice the people should demand from the legislature that immediate steps be taken to free the country from a traffic which is so utterly at war with the well-being of the communitv. John Heywood, Excelsior Steam Printing and Bookbinding Works, Hulme Haix Road, Manchester. ?^' -;»*i': .!^^' Asm*^, ^ - • ^:%,. -■•■■^%r^:*?^.^A?^^^^:Si ->'^^-