lish the existence of any such law as this, it would be necessary to be in possession not only, as at present, of carefully prepared returns from the police, but of a complete and perfectly accurate register of every case of drunkenness occurring in private houses or elsewhere. Until this impossible perfection of statistics can be attained, we must be content with such facts as are brought before us, and accept, though with caution, the inferences. which they suggest.

the increased

efficiency of

A suspicion that an increased activity of our police has contributed to the apparent increase of drunkenness is justified by other considerations besides the Explanation to discrepancies of the returns of imports and be sought in excise. If the fact is beyond dispute that numbers and although the consumption of spirits per head the police. of the total population has been steadily increasing during almost the whole of the period included in the present chapter, the rate of its increase has not been commensurate with the rate of increase in detected drunkenness, there is no less certainty that the force of police and constabulary has been silently growing in numbers, and in efficiency. In the very year 1873 when there was a sudden rise of twenty-one per cent. in the number of cases of drunkenness, there was an addition of two and one fifth per cent. both to the borough and to the county constabulary, and it was chiefly the constabulary which brought the additional offenders to justice. A rise of two per cent. in the number of constables is, of course, at first sight, wholly insufficient to account for the very much greater rise in the number of drunkards brought before magistrates. But each man of the constabulary and metropolitan police together had, in the year 1872, apprehended, on the average, five persons alleged to be

drunk and disorderly. Though we may be in some doubt with respect to the number of gallons of beer or spirits required to produce a definite result in drunkenness throughout a population of more than twenty-two millions, we need not hesitate to believe that one strong healthy man could, if necessary, take not only five drunkards in a year, but five in a week, or in a day, if necessary, to a police-station. It would, therefore, be mere folly to compare the actual growth of the police force with the apparent growth of drunkenness, in the hope of finding an exact agreement in the percentage. But it is obvious that different instructions might be given at different times to policemen and constables on duty, and that the men themselves might even, in process of time, learn to interpret more severely the instructions given. The total force of police and constabulary is continually increasing, not only absolutely but relatively to the population. This fact is in itself evidence of a desire to render the body vigilant and effective as a whole; and the addition to the number of drunkards taken into custody may well be the effect, to a very great extent, at least, of additional care on the part of those who take them.

drunkenness

with the popu

don and Liver

pool.

The more the facts are studied in detail the more is this inference confirmed. Not only the county, but also Decrease of the borough constabulary, are and have been as compared less numerous in proportion to the population lation in Lon- than the police of the metropolis. In the metropolis, the persons apprehended as drunk and disorderly in 1873 were equal to one in every 102 of its population, but the persons so apprehended throughout the whole of England and Wales were equal to no more than one in 124. The difference is very considerable, and might at first suggest the inference that drunkenness is

towns.

most prevalent and increases most rapidly in the larget But our own observation and the testimony of our fathers assures us that drunken and disorderly persons are far less commonly seen in the streets than in former times, and that, apart from comparison, they are but rarely seen at all. The most remarkable fact, however, is that the number of apprehensions for drunkenness and disorderly conduct by the metropolitan police was hardly greater in 1873 than in 1850, and considerably less than in 1831, 1832, or 1833. Yet the population in 1871 had been nearly doubled since 1831; and therefore, in proportion to the population, drunkenness had been reduced in the metropolis by one-half in forty years.

Liverpool, which exceeds all other English towns but London in magnitude, has just the same tale to tell with respect to its drunkenness. The population has grown at about the same rate as that of London. In 1841 there were 17,508 persons charged with drunkenness and disorderly conduct in Liverpool, and after many fluctuations there were 18,038 in 1873. There is no doubt that, so far as reliance can be placed upon figures, the metropolis of Lancashire, as well as the metropolis of all England, shows a remarkable increase in sobriety.

Explanation

Where, then, is to be sought the explanation of the apparently contradictory facts that, so far as statistics are concerned, drunkenness is on the increase throughout England, that it is most prevalent of the discrein the large cities, and yet that in both of the the statistics largest cities it is, when compared with the number of inhabitants, continually decreasing?

pancy between

of those two

towns and of

the rest of England.

There is every reason to believe that the superior efficiency of the police causes the apparent pre-eminence of London in drunkenness, and that a change in the

habits of the people has kept the drunkenness down to the level of half a century ago, while the population has doubled.

There is a point beyond which no vigilance or strictness can swell the number of persons apprehended for disorderly conduct and drunkenness. That point seems to have been reached in London about the years 1831-1833. In smaller towns than Liverpool, and still more in the rural districts, it would be vain to seek a police organisation so perfect as in London. But as the organisation is improved and the number of the constabulary is increased, there is necessarily a nearer and nearer approach to the metropolitan model. With every gain in efficiency an approach is made towards that point beyond which it cannot be carried without oppression ; and in the process there is, as an inevitable consequence, a swelling of the criminal returns, especially in minor offences.

It would not, however, be altogether consistent with facts to rely upon this one cause alone for the explanation which is sought. Drunkenness is very often the vice of an uncultivated nature exposed suddenly to temptation and well supplied with the means of self-gratification. It is then but the old habit of the savage feasting after the division of the spoil. Its prominence in 1873 and some previous years is not equally marked throughout England, even if London and Liverpool be excluded from consideration. It is most conspicuous in the coal districts, and generally in the mining districts, and next to them in the towns and counties where manufacturing prosperity is of most recent development-in Durham and Lancashire among counties, in Newcastle-on-Tyne and Manchester among towns. The combination of high pay and low

culture must therefore be recognised as one of the conditions of life which tend to make men drunken and disorderly. But, on the other hand, there is the greatest encouragement to be found in the history of the metropolis, which shows that evil habits may be outgrown-or, perhaps, in other words, that the extremely low culture gradually ceases to be combined with the high pay, and that as manners are softened in one direction they are softened also in another. Nor does modern London alone give reason for hope. We have but to look back a little further -to measure our progress from the eighteenth century as a starting point-and we shall perceive at once that drunkenness in England, whatever its temporary ebbs and flows, has greatly subsided when the present day is compared with the days of the Gin Act.

ness a cause

Drunkenness is sometimes, no doubt, a cause of the graver crimes. It may stimulate to some deeds of violence, and send to prison a man who, had Is drunkenhe remained sober, might have escaped re- of crime? proach. When it becomes a habit, it is attended by loss of the power of application to work, and perhaps followed by poverty, which leads to temptation and theft. But the habitual drunkard is a person deficient in will and selfrestraint, and the deficiency may have existed before he became what he is. The inability to resist drink, and the inability to resist other temptations, may be, and probably are, indications of a disposition which is not created by alcohol, though an excessive consumption of alcohol may increase its weaknesses. Drunkenness is, in fact, according to a familiar illustration, not the disease, but one out of many symptoms of a disease. To abolish drunkenness would not, in all probability, be to abolish crime, though if all crimes could be abolished, drunkenness