An argument for the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic / by Frederic Richard Lees.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An argument for the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic / by Frederic Richard Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    » The Traffic, therefore, which is already subjected to various restric- tions, and in different countries and ages has been proscribed ought to be totally prohibited by a wise Statesmanship amongst ourselves. § 7. From the formal statement and proof of our proposition we proceed to general illustrations. In 1834, the Parliament of Great Britain, in its Report on Drunkenness, founded on an elaborate examination of witnesses from the three kingdoms, made the following declaration:— “The consequences of the vice of intoxication* are so many and so fearful that it is difficult to enumerate even the outlines of them; and to pursue them in all their melancholy details would require a volume.. The following are only a few of the evils directly springing from this baneful source:— “ Consequences to Individuals.—Destruction to health—disease in every form and shape—-premature decrepitude in the old—stunted growth, and general debility and decay in the young—loss of life by paroxysms, apoplexies, drownings, burnings, and accidents of various kinds—delirium tremens, paralysis, idiotcy, madness, and violent death; destruction of mental capaoity and vigor, and extinction of aptitude for learning, as well as desire for practising any useful art or industrious occupation. Irritation of all the worst passions of the heart—hatred, anger, revenge—with a brutalization of disposi- tion that breaks asunder and destroys the most endearing bonds of nature and society. Extinction of all moral and religious principle, disregard of truth, indifference to education,—violation of chastity,— insensibility to shame, and indescribable degradation. “ Consequences to National Welfare.—The Destruction of Grain, given by a bountifid Providence for the food of man, which is now converted by distillation into a poison: the highest medical authori- ties examined before your committee being uniform in their testimony that ardent spirits are absolutely poisonous to the human constitu- tion—so that not only is an immense amount of food destroyed, whilst thousands are inadequately fed, but this food is destroyed in such a manner as to injure greatly the agricultural producers them- selves, for whose grain, but for this perverted use of it, there would be more than twice the present demand.—The Loss of Productive Labor in every department of occupation, to the extent of at least one day in six throughout the kingdom, as testified by witnesses engaged in various manufacturing occupations ; by which the wealth of the country is retarded or suppressed to the exteut of one million out of every six .that is produced, to say nothing of the constant derangement, imperfection, and destruction in every [industrial] process, occasioned by the intemperance, and consequent unskilfulness, inattention, and neglect of those affected by intoxication, producing great injury in aur domestic and foreign trade.—The extensive Loss of Property * We shall show, farther on, that the Traffic is the National fountain of this intoxica- tion The Chairman of the Committee was the late Jambs Silk Buckingham, then Hi p' for Sheffield, to whose intelligent and life-long labors in the cause of Temperance and Freedom the world is very largely indebted.