Parliamentary deliberations and debates upon the drink traffic.

Date:
[between 1864 and 1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Parliamentary deliberations and debates upon the drink traffic. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    crossed tlie threshold of another century. On the 2nd of November, 1601, the House of Commons considered an act to provide f against excess in inns, victualling-houses, and ale-houses/ A fine of £5 was to be imposed on drink-vendors who violated certain rules. Next day, Mr. Johnson f moved that bodily punishment might be inflicted on ale-house keepers that should be offenders; and also provision made to restrain resort to ale-houses/ Another member, Sir George Moore, wished for severer laws against drunkenness, but he objected to judges of assize and justices of the peace being allowed to f assign* inns and innkeepers. Another member desired f a reformation of ale/ which, he was ready to take his oath, was sold at a groat a quart, and f is as strong as wine, and will burn like sack/ Cheaper and weaker, was this gentlemaAs motto. Mr. Glascock made a speech, so short and representative, that we shall reproduce it:— ‘ Mr. Speaker, I will only liken this bill to the suppression of stews and bawdy- houses in old time, that where then all bawds were together in one house, now being suppressed, every man’s house is a bawdy-house, so if you take away ale¬ houses, and hinder them from being drunk there, it will be a ready way to make every man drunk at his own house at home.’ In these few words Mr. Glascock ingeniously contrived to misrepresent the scope of the bill, and to oppose it by a spuri¬ ous analogy which he backed up by two most barefaced and false assertions. Great is Glascockianism, and having survived till the reign of Victoria, it now, as in the days of Queen Elizabeth, meets with professors and admirers. Very busy was the last Parliament of Queen Bess with the liquor traffic; for on November 5th a bill was read which fined the ale-seller 3s. 4d. for every quart of beer short measure. The day before (Nov. 4) a bill respecting drunkards and common haunters of taverns and ale-houses was also read; and on the 6th Dr. James, to whom it had been referred as c a committee/ brought it on again, and on the following day—a Saturday— it was subjected to discussion. It provided that if any man went to an ale-house within two miles of his own house he should forfeit as much as he was assessed for the subsidy; and to this proposal, the stringency of which marks the pressure of the evils that required correction, Mr. Glascock took exception in another choice little speech, in which he informed the House that it was ‘ A common and usual thing in Lancashire and those parts for gentlemen as they go a-hawking to go and take a repast at an ale-house; yea, men sometimes of 500 marks a year ; but, Mr. Speaker, I hope these men are not intended to come within this bill; and I think it a mere cobweb to catch poor flies in.’ Sir Francis Darcy spoke in favour of the bill, which was com- ^ mitted,