Licensing and temperance in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark / by Edwin A. Pratt.

  • Edwin A. Pratt
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Licensing and temperance in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark / by Edwin A. Pratt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/136 page 20
    into with the British Consul at Gothenburg, Mr. John Duff, I learned that the sales represented a turnover of no less than 300,000 kr. (£20,000) a year, and this, too, although the rental of the shop would probably not exceed £100 a year. The sales on a quiet day were about 300 litres. On Wednesdays they rose to about 000 litres; but on Saturdays they would run up to no less than 4,000 litres—roughly, 880 gallons. This would be a higher figure than the average for the whole of the shops (at another of which I learned that the annual turnover was £11,000) ; but, assuming such average to he 3,000 litres, we get the fact that from these seven retail shops belonging to the Gothenburg Bolag there are sent out every Saturday no fewer than 21,000 litres (say 4,620 gallons) of native brandy for consumption in the homes of the people either in Gothenburg or in the country round about; and those who know the weaknesses of the Swedish populace assured me that the greater part of the quantity would certainly be consumed before Saturday night closed. I question very much if the well-meaning Bishops, politicians, and others in England who applaud ‘ disinterested management,’ and would fain see it established in this country, have yet realized the particular phase of the business here indicated. If, instead of merely reading books on the subject, or of visiting the Bolag drinking- bars in Gothenburg in the quiet hours of the day, and becoming enamoured with the restric- tions there, they would visit the Bolag retail shops on a Saturday afternoon, their ideas of the
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