Title: The New Sunday Liquor Law Vindicated
Author: Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
Language: English
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VINDICATED***


Transcribed from the 1855 William Tweedie edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org



                                   THE
                          NEW SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW
                               VINDICATED.


                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                           BY J. EWING RITCHIE.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                      WILLIAM TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND.

                                  1855.

                                * * * * *

                                   THE
                            PUBLIC-HOUSE TRADE
                                AS IT IS:
                        AN EPITOME OF THE EVIDENCE
                              TAKEN BEFORE A
                    COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
                                  IN THE
                    PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONS OF 1853–4.

                           BY J. EWING RITCHIE.

                                * * * * *



THE
NEW SUNDAY LIQUOR LAW VINDICATED.


AN Act came into operation in August, denominated “The New Beer Bill,”
requiring public-houses to be closed on Sundays, with the exception of
the hours 1 to 3 p.m., and 6 to 10 p.m.  No sooner was it passed than it
was found there was a great decrease in the number of cases of persons
charged with drunkenness at the various police stations of the
metropolis.  Monday, instead of being a heavy day, was the reverse—the
magistrates had little or nothing to do.  But this great public good was
not brought about without inconveniencing some parties.  The publicans
felt their craft was in danger,—that they were, as Benjamin Disraeli
informed them the other day at Plymouth, “in a critical situation;” and
that if they acquiesced in the law, the result would be most
unsatisfactory, pecuniarily, to themselves.  Accordingly, they have
banded themselves into one compact Defence Association—they have taken
sweet counsel together—they have organised an opposition all over the
land.  Whether they have acted wisely is another matter: with the
evidence just published in two enormous Blue Books, I think silence would
become them better.  And so thought the knowing ones in the trade when
they accepted the new Bill instead of one that would have been harsher
still.  The opponents of the Bill—publicans by-the-bye—thus speak of it:
Mr. Luce of Hampton Court, “thinks it a despotic and tyrannical Bill.”
According to a Mr. Symes, “it is directed against all recreation on
Sundays—all relaxation after the toils of the week.”  Mr. Palmer said,
“The Bill ought to be called the Liberty of the Subject and Licensed
Victuallers’ Liberty Curtailment Bill.”  I take these extracts from the
report of a great meeting in Drury Lane in September.  Mr. Lyne, also a
publican, writes in the _Daily News_, that “since the curfew bell there
never was a measure which produced such general discontent.
Notwithstanding the genialness of the weather the social gloom which has
settled in the suburbs is indescribable.”  The _Daily News_, in the poor
hope of saving itself from annihilation, by opposing the new Bill, and
thus becoming the organ of the pot-house says:—“The Pharisees of our
drawing-rooms and saloons ought, before they are allowed to hamper and
annoy the honest poor by their enactments, to be compelled to share for a
season in the labour of the poor, in order that they might have some
conception of the privations which they entail upon their victims, and
the possible consequences of such privation.”  In another leader it draws
the picture of a working man returning from Brighton and starving in the
streets in consequence of the new Bill.  Such is an outline of the new
Bill, as described by the publicans and their champion, the _Daily News_.
Never was there a greater outcry and so little wool.  One would fancy
from the above remarks that an injustice was being done—such as the world
had never witnessed before.  You would have thought that at least we had
been robbed of _habeas corpus_, or that still more valued right the
Englishman’s right to grumble.  You would have expected every print to be
filled with tales of terror—you would expect every man you met to have
had a face of woe, and especially that the working classes, who have been
robbed of their rights in so atrocious a manner, would have talked of
armed resistance, or at least have provided themselves with pikes.  The
working men have not held a single meeting on the matter—not one single
groan has been wrung from them by the unheard of oppression under which
they now labour.  So callous and indifferent are they—so utterly callous
and indifferent are all other classes of society—that the publicans have
been compelled to come forward and so do battle for the working man.
What disinterested public spirit!  English liberty, torn, bruised,
bleeding, shunned by all who once worshipped her and whom she once
blessed, finds refuge in a public-house!  If you want her you must go to
the King’s Arms, or the Red Lion, and call for a pint of beer.

But I have over-stated my case: there have been some complaints from
parties not publicans after all.  On looking through a file of the _Daily
News_ for the last three months I find three such.  No. 1, is there
placed in the largest type, and headed, “Starvation by Act of
Parliament!”  You are alarmed.  Read on, your fears will soon cease.  The
writer says:—“Sir, I am a bachelor living in chambers, the resources of
my _ménage_ do not extend to cooking a dinner, and, like most persons in
my situation, I generally dine at a tavern in the neighbourhood.  On
Sunday, I attended the afternoon service at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and
upon my return at five o’clock (what a circumstantial dog he is!) I
repaired with my appetite in excellent condition to my usual dining-place
in Fleet-street.  I was rather taken aback at finding a closed door
frowning upon me; but I rang the bell, and, after a brief delay, a small
part of the door was cautiously opened, and there appeared in the apeture
the head of a disconsolate looking waiter, who told me that the
establishment was closed in compliance with the provision of the New Beer
Bill, and that consequently I could not have any dinner.”  The next deep
pang of anguish bursts from the bleeding bosom of a Templar, who says:—“I
am a victim of this Act, being scarcely able to get any dinner before the
Sunday evening service.”  Another, a father of a family, says he dines at
five, and he finds the beer flat.  That I imagine is his own fault.
Surely it was not the Act of Parliament did that.  We shall next be told
when the beer turns sour that was also the Act of Parliament.  But
perhaps I am wrong.  A well-known judge declared Parliament could do
every thing but make a woman a man or a man a woman.  So, after all, the
father of a family may be right, and the New Beer Bill may be the reason
why his “arf-and-arf” is flat.

Now, I ask, is it not ridiculous, on the face of it, that an Act of
Parliament should be set aside, because a bachelor finds, once upon a
time, the door of his favourite hotel shut in his face; or because a
Templar says he can’t dine till near the time for evening
service,—though, for the life of me, I can’t see why he cannot; or
because the father of a family finds his beer is flat: yet this is all
the complaint I find, even in the _Daily News_.  We are told the working
men are robbed of their rights.  I don’t find the working men
complain,—why should they?  They know better than that.  The law, as it
stands, allows the working man to get all the beer he wants; and if you
turn to the evidence lately given before a Committee of the House of
Commons, you will find that the working classes are in favour of the
change, and that many of them, even the most drunken and dissipated, feel
that it would be a good thing if the public-houses could be closed
altogether on Sundays.  Many of the most respectable publicans in the
metropolis gave similar evidence before the same Committee.  All the
moral and decent people in the country are of a similar opinion.  The
Provost of Edinburgh shows that when Forbes Mackenzie’s Act came into
operation in Edinburgh drunkenness and crime decreased; that when the
magistrates allowed it to fall into abeyance, drunkenness and crime
increased.  Evidence was read before the Committee, by the Rev. Mr.
Baylee, to show that some years since a great reformation had been
effected by the partial closing of public-houses, and Mr. Balfour showed
how the metropolis had improved in this respect within the last few
years.  The question is, Is this improvement to be continued?  No one
expects to make men moral by Act of Parliament; no one expects the
policeman to take the parson’s place; but when we see a great good
done,—when we see a fruitful source of crime and poverty and disease
arrested, are we to pause because a Templar cannot dine till evening
service, or because the father of a family complains that his beer is
flat?  I forgot the publicans: are they to stop the way?  I trust not.
It is nonsense to say the working-man is deprived of his beer; he is not.
All the beer a man needs he can buy now.  The public-houses are allowed
to be open sufficiently for that purpose.  It is clear what the publicans
are fighting for; the welfare of the working-man is a mere pretence,—the
rights of Englishmen is a mere pretence,—they want to sell more beer,—to
sell the beer that shall intoxicate; all that the new Bill seeks to do is
to prevent a man sitting all Sunday night in a public-house, spending his
last shilling there, and thus robbing his wife and family of that which
should feed and clothe and maintain them during the week.  The publicans
themselves confess the Sunday trade is an abominable one.  More than one
publican, examined before the Committee, confessed this to be the case.
The evidence of Mr. Wayland, the Marylebone City missionary, and others,
all went to show that it is the Sunday drinking that does so much harm,
and that was the effect of the late hours at which public-houses were
allowed to be kept open.

I have just seen forty-eight circulars returned from various employers of
labour in different parts of the metropolis, addressed to them by the
Committee of the London Temperance League.  The questions proposed were
as follows:—“Have you perceived any change with respect to the hour at
which your workpeople commence their labours on Monday morning?  Have you
noticed any improvement, or otherwise, with respect to the aggregate
amount of time your workpeople are at their employment during the entire
week?  What is your opinion as to the general effects of the recent Act
or Parliament in relation to the management of public-houses, or upon the
happiness and well-being of your workpeople?  Is it your opinion that the
hours during which spirituous and fermented drinks may be obtained on
Sundays should be subject to further restrictions?”  Of these replies
thirty-two were favourable,—twelve decidedly the reverse, and four
neutral.  Thus we have employers in favour of the new Bill,—the poor in
its favour,—many of the publicans, who feel the Sunday trade not to be
respectable,—in short all classes in its favour except one, and that a
section of the publicans who want to sell more beer, and, to do so, cant
about the interests of the working classes and the liberty of Englishmen.
Cant at all times is loathsome; the cant of the hypocrite is bad enough,
but this is infinitely worse.  I know nothing more nauseating, nothing
more false.  Men talk about the cant of the religious—and we have too
much of that; but that does no harm: but this cant is intolerable, one’s
stomach turns at it; this raising the fair banner of freedom to pander to
the demoralization of the public,—this talk by the publican of the rights
of the working-man, in order that he may be decoyed into the public-house
and made drunk, and robbed of all he has, is cant as fearful and
sickening as any ever uttered.

There may be defects in the Bill; I do not say there are not.  Like most
pieces of parliamentary legislation it is bungling enough, and the
convenient latitude attached to the definition of the word “traveller”
may rob it of almost all its beneficial effects.  That it may also create
occasional inconvenience I freely admit, but the case at present is all
in its favour; the protest raised against it is the same.  But the
publicans oppose it.  I could understand if the public-houses were
altogether closed on Sundays they might say it robbed the public of
reasonable refreshment; but they have no pretext of the kind, and their
opposition is now, I take it, the strongest argument in favour of the
Bill.  It is clear, now, why they oppose it; it is not the benefit of the
public they seek so much as their own.  It is the drinking beyond what is
reasonable,—the intoxication of the working classes on the Sunday
night,—the repetition of the scenes which have already brought such
disgrace on the land, and such misery on our homes, for which they fight.
For these reasons they denounce the Bill.  For these reasons every
well-wisher to his country, every sober man and woman, should give the
Bill their hearty support, taking it for good as far as it goes, and
seeking, if any change be made, that the change be one which the
publicans shall like even less.  We are told there is to be a contest; we
are told the publicans will not let well alone; we are told next session
they will agitate for the removal of this “unjust and iniquitous law.”
Let them do so; it will be the worst day’s work for them they ever did.
Let them do so, and an agitation will be begun, and a public sentiment
will be created, and an array of facts shall be turned against them, as
shall shake their trade to its very base.  Wisdom would counsel them
silence.  Wisdom would recommend them not to call public attention to
their craft—as they will not follow her guidance,—as they find fault with
the Committee and the _Advertiser_, which accepted the Bill rather than
see one more stringent passed, the masses can await with confidence the
result.  The middle classes of this country know the horror of Sabbath
drinking too well, the poor of this country know it too well; neither are
to be cajoled by a pretence, on the part of the publicans, to advocate
their interests or uphold their rights.  It is a question of the public
on one side and the publicans on the other.  The agitation against the
Bill is the most shameless, selfish, dishonest agitation ever begun in
this country.  I know not if it will be continued much longer; I know
that if it is, it will have most disastrous results, so far as the
publicans are concerned.  If even Disraeli will refuse to make political
capital out of them, notwithstanding their urgent request to the
contrary, they must be in a doleful plight.  Their cause must be bad
indeed.  Their battle must be lost almost before it be begun.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

    Printed by R. BARRETT, 13, Mark Lane, for W. TWEEDIE, 337, Strand.





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