No man can witness the scenes, and doings, of many persons who attend the new beer-houses, without pain and regret, that ever an act of parliament was passed to legalize such places.  I have visited some hundreds of such, throughout the country, and can positively assert that the demoralising tendency of too many is awful!  Our magistrates must be more careful in granting licences, or the efforts of the wise and good will be neutralized, by the evils concocted at such places.  The old inkeepers had a character, and capital at stake.  The new beerhouse-keepers, I should say, a majority of them at least, have neither, and consequently are less cautious, having less to lose.  Whatever the end of the legislature might have been in enabling the poor to procure a good and cheap article more easily, to be drunk on or off the premises, the thing has not answered the end, and no one can deny, who will take the trouble to visit such places in different counties, that the Act has been a miserable failure, and has been the fruitful source of crime and immorality.  What a lesson is this for speculative, short sighted legislators?

Another measure should then be adopted, I would say—­destroy the facility of spirit-drinking, by laying on a heavy duty.  It is in vain that interested sophistry would plead its benefits in particular cases—­such, for instance, as the ludicrous plea of the needfulness of drams for market-women on wet and frosty mornings.[A] Set these specious benefits against the dreadful results to men’s health and pockets, from the present low price of spirits, and their consequent enormous consumption; and then let common sense and honesty deliver its judgment.

I have spoken thus candidly and at length upon the subject in the present chapter, though somewhat out of place, because my feelings would not allow me to be less plain or more brief, or to postpone the matter to “a more convenient season.”  Perhaps in talking of legislative alterations I have been wandering upon forbidden ground; if so, in returning to my proper path, I will comfort myself with this thought:—­the progress of improvement, however slow, is sure, and it is certainly advancing in this country; I require no other assurance than the establishment of Infant Schools and Mechanic’s.

[Footnote A:  Some conception of the fearful height which drunkenness has attained, may be gathered from the fact, that in 1829, the quantity of distilled spirits on which the duty was paid in the three kingdoms, amounted to 23,000,000 of gallons.  To form a due estimate, however, of the actual consumption, an immense quantity must be added, obtained by smuggling.  Of the rum imported for home consumption, allowing for that re-exported, the quantity was 5,000,000 of gallons.  Of brandy and other articles imported, 1,500,000 gallons; making a total, with the omission of all on which the duty was evaded, of 30,000,000 of gallons of ardent spirits consumed in the year.  Five millions of revenue grew out of this, but it cost the people 15,000,000_l_. sterling, a which would have paid half-a-year’s interest of the national debt.]