a traveller, shall accompany him during his necessary abode there; or except labouring and handicraftsmen in cities, and corporate and market towns, upon a working-day, for an hour at dinner-time, in ale houses, where they take their diet; and except labourers and workmen, who, during their continu ance in any work, shall lodge or victual in any inn, &c. or except for some urgent and necessary occasion, to be allowed by two justices of the peace) shall forfeit the sum of three shillings and sixpence, for the use of the poor; to be levied as before, and, for want of distress, to be put in the stocks for four hours*. This act hath been still farther enforced by another in the same reign. By the latter act, the tippler is liable, whether his habitation be within the same or any other parish. 2dly, The proof by one witness is made sufficient; and, 3dly, A very extraordinary clause is added, by which the oath of the party offending, after having confessed his own crime, is made evidence against any other offender, though at the same time. Thus we see the legislature have taken the utmost care not only to punish, but even to prevent this vice of drunkennes, which the preamble of one of the foregoing statutes calls a loathsome and odious sin, and the root and foundation of many other enormous sins, as murder, &c. Nor doth the wisdom of our law stop here. Our cautious ancestors have endeavoured to remove the temptation, and, in a great measure, to take away from the people their very power of offending this way. And this by going to the fountain-head, and endeavouring to regulate and restrain the scenes of these disorders, and to confine them to those uses for which they were at first designed; namely, for the rest, refreshment, and convenience of travellers. Jac. I. chap. iv. seet. 4. & 1 Jac. I. chap. ix. A cursory view of the statutes on this head will demonstrate of what consequence to society the suppression of this vice was in the opinion of our an cestors. By the common law, inns and alehouses might be kept ad libitum; but if any disorders were suffered in them, they were indictable as a common nuisance. The first reform which I find to have been made by parliament, was in the reign of Henry VII.*, when two justices were empowered to suppress an alehouse. The statute of Edward VI. is the first which requires a precedent licence. By this act no man can keep an alehouse, without being licensed by the sessions, or by two justices; but now, by a late statute, all licences granted by justices out of their sessions are void. By the statute of Charles I.§, which alters the penalties of that of Edward VI. the punishment for keeping an alehouse, or common selling ale, beer, cyder and perry, without a licence, is to pay twenty shillings to the use of the poor, to be levied by distress; which, if satisfaction be not made within three days, is to be sold. And if there be no goods whereon to restrain, and the money be not paid within six days after conviction, the offender is to be delivered to the constable, or some inferior officer, to be whipped. For the second offence, he is to be committed to the house of correction for a month; and for the third, he is be committed to the said house, till, by order of the justices, at their general sessions, he be discharged. The conviction is to be on the view of the justice, confession of the party, or by the oath of two wit nesses. And by this statute, if the constable or officer to whom the party is committed to be whipped, &c. do * 11 Hen. VII. + 5 Edw. vi. c. XXV. 2 G. II. c. xxviii. sect. II. §3 Car. I. cap. iv. not execute his warrant, the justice shall commit him to prison, there to remain till he shall procure some one to execute the said warrant, or until he shall pay forty shillings to the use of the poor. The justices, at the time of granting the licence, shall take a recognizance from the party, not to suffer any unlawful games, nor other disorders, in his house; which is to be certified to the sessions, and the justices there have a power to proceed for the forfeiture*. By the statute of Jac. I., alehouse-keepers, who suffer townsmen to sit tippling, unless in the cases abovementioned, forfeit ten shillings to the poor; the distress to be sold within six days; and if no distress can be had, the party is to be committed till the forfeiture is paid. Vintners who keep inns or victualling-houses, are within this act §. And by two several statutes ||, alehouse-keepers, convicted of this offence, are prohibited from keeping an alehouse for the space of three years. Justices of peace likewise, for any disorders committed in alehouses contrary to the condition of the recognizance, may suppress such houses; but then the proceeding must be on the recognizance, and the breach of the condition proved **. Now, on the concise view of these several laws, it appears, that the legislature have been abundantly careful on this head; and that the only blame lies on the remissness with which these wholesome provisions have been executed. But though I will not undertake to defend the magistrates of former times, who have surely been guilty of some neglect of their duty; yet, on behalf of the present commissioners of the peace, I * 5 §1 Car. I. cap. iv, E. VI. ubi sup. + Cap. ix. ubi sup. **Salk, 45. MIV must observe, their case is very different. What physicians tell us of the animal functions will hold true when applied to laws; both by long disuse lose all their elasticity and force. Froward habits grow on men, as they do on children, by long indulgence; nor will either submit easily to correction in matters where they have been accustomed to act at their pleasure. They are very different offices to execute a new or a well-known law and to revive one which is obsolete. In the case of a known law, custom brings men to submission; and in all new provisions the ill-will, if any, is levelled at the legislature, who are much more able to support it than a few or a single magistrate. If therefore it be thought proper to suppress this vice the legislature must once more take the matter into their hands: and to this perhaps they will be the more inclined when it comes to their knowledge, that a new kind of drunkenness, unknown to our ancestors, is lately sprung up amongst us, and which, if not put a stop to, will infallibly destroy a great part of the inferior people. The drunkenness I here intend is that acquired by the strongest intoxicating liquors, and particularly by that poison called Gin; which I have great reason to think is the principal sustenance (if it may be so called) of more than an hundred thousand people in this metropolis. Many of these wretches there are who swallow pints of this poison within the twenty-four hours; the dreadful effects of which I have the misfortune every day to see, and to smell too. But I have no need to insist on my own credit, or on that of my informers; the great revenue arising from the tax on this liquor (the consumption of which is almost wholly confined to the lowest order of people) will prove the quantity consumed better than any other evidence. Now, besides the moral ill consequences occasioned by this drunkenness, with which, in this treatise I profess not to deal; how greatly must this be supposed to contribute to those political mischiefs which this essay proposes to remedy? this will appear from considering, that however cheap this vile potion may be, the poorer sort will not easily be able to supply themselves with the quantities they desire; for the intoxicating draught itself disqualifies them from using any honest means to acquire it, at the same time that it removes all sense of fear and shame, and emboldens them to commit every wicked and desperate enterprize. Many instances of this I see daily; wretches are often brought before me, charged with theft and robbery, whom I am forced to confine before they are in a condition to be examined; and when they have afterwards become sober, I have plainly perceived, from the state of the case, that the Gin alone was the cause of the transgression, and have been sometimes sorry that I was obliged to commit them to prison. But beyond all this there is a political ill consequence of this drunkenness, which, though it doth not strictly fall within my present purpose, I shall be excused for mentioning, it being indeed the greatest evil of all, and which must, I think, awaken our legislature to put a final period to so destructive a practice. And this is that dreadful consequence which must attend the poisonous quality of this pernicious liquor to the health, the strength, and the very being of numbers of his majesty's most useful subjects. I have not enough of physical knowledge to display the ill effects which such poisonous liquors produce in the constitution; for these I shall refer the reader to The physical Account of the Nature of all distilled Spirituous Liquors, and the Effect they have on Human Bodies *. And though, This was composed by a very learned divine, with the assistance of several physicians, and published in the year 1736. The title is, Distilled Spirituous Liquors the Bane of the Nation. |
