significantly in the direction of restriction. The Sunday Closing (Wales) Act of 1881 made law for Wales and Monmouthshire one of the most important of the conditions imposed by the Justices of 1787. The Act of 1886 prohibiting the sale of liquor to children for consumption on the premises, and that of 1901 forbidding such sale at all except in sealed vessels, represent an entirely new departure, never thought of by the magistrates of the eighteenth century. Finally, the "black list" established by the Act of 1902 reminds us of the precisely similar provision included in the "articles" under James I. three centuries before.

But the most important part of the history since 1830 is to be found, we think, in the wonderful story of the growth of Temperance organisations and their effect in changing public opinion. That change, as yet reflected only to a small extent by the contents of the statutebook, and unfortunately not much in the total consumption of alcoholic liquor,' began to be perceptible in legislative projects and parliamentary debates between 1860 and 1870, and

1 See the statistics given in The Temperance Problem, by J. Rowntree and A. Sherwell (1899). In 1897 the average consumption per head was 1.03 gallons spirits, 0·40 gallons wine, and 314 gallons beer per annum (Final Report of the Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing, 1899, p. 362).

markedly influenced those of the following decade. Since about 1877, at any rate, it may be traced in the growing stringency of the licensing policy of nearly all benches of magistrates. The outcome of this transformation of opinion sometimes reminds us of the movement of 1786-87, and sometimes, by its contrasts, marks the changes of a couple of centuries.

The popular movement in favour of Local Option and Local Veto recalls one of the widely adopted devices of 1787. On the other hand, such powerful aid to the cause of temperance as has been given by the London County Council was not looked for in the municipal administration of the eighteenth century. Still less could the reformers of that day have contemplated the idea of municipalising the liquor traffic. It never occurred to the Justices of the eighteenth century to bargain with a brewer for the surrender of two or three existing licences in return for one new one, because, as we have seen, it never entered into their heads, or those of the lawyers of the time, that there could be any question of compensation.' And it is only within the last few years that the licensing benches of

1 For a discussion of compensation, see The Place of Compensation in Temperance Reform, by C. P. Sanger (1901), one of the publications of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

the present generation have plucked up courage to exercise the discretion which their predecessors under George the Third used so freely, in suppressing licensed houses which were unnecessary for the supply of the legitimate wants of the neighbourhood.1

It is interesting to notice that, whereas in the middle of the nineteenth century the tendency seemed to be to take the licensing and regulation of the liquor traffic out of the hands of the local authorities, and to make it as exclusively part of the national administration as are the Factories and Workshops Acts, the tendency of the last quarter of a century has been to restore it to the sphere of Local Government.

On this note we pause. We prefer to draw no inferences and to come to no conclusion until we have had opportunities of further investigation.

1 For the case of Sharp v. Wakefield (1 Appeal Cases, 1891, p. 473), in which this right of the Justices was elaborately argued, and ultimately upheld, see The Licensing Acts, by J. Paterson (13th edit. 1900), pp. 397-407, or vol. ix. of the Proceedings of the Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing, 1897-99.

APPENDIX

THE MOVEMENT FOR THE REFORMATION OF MANNERS

THE Societies for the Reformation of Manners appear to have been established soon after the Revolution, and securing, from 1691 onwards, the patronage of the Queen and repeated commendations from Parliament, they grew rapidly, during the ensuing years, into a large and influential organisation. We need not concern ourselves with the particular forms which they assumed, especially as the several societies were always dying away and being resuscitated, according to the waxing or waning of the feeling that public morals needed to be reformed. The various groups seem to have been composed of very different classes of persons. There were, in the grandest of them, great lawyers and divines, members of Parliament and other dignitaries in close connection with the Government. Others were composed of clergymen of the Church of England; there was one of Justices of the Peace, and several mainly of tradesmen; there was one of persons connected with parish government in the metropolis; one of constables; and even one of "such as made it some part of their business to give information to a magistrate," that is to say, of professional informers.1

1 The main source of information for the earlier societies is An Account of the Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies in the City

These Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which sprang up in most of the corporate towns as well as in the metropolis, set themselves to carry into execution the various royal proclamations "for the encouragement of piety and virtue, and for the preventing and punishing of vice, profaneness, and immorality," which we have already described. They repressed licentiousness and disorderly conduct rather than crimes against life or property. "We are told that many thousands have been brought to punishment for swearing and cursing; that a multitude of drunkards and profaners of the Lord's Day, some of whom kept, as it were, open markets within a few years past, have been made examples of . . . that hundreds of disorderly houses, which were little better than stews, and nests for thieves, clippers, and coiners, etc., have been rooted out and suppressed public disorders are remarkably cured; and, in short, vice is afraid and ashamed to show its head, where within a few years past it was daring and triumphant." What the societies actually did seems to have been to pay the expenses of the prosecution of criminals, to encourage voluntary inforof London, etc., and of the Endeavours for Reformation of Manners which have been made therein, by Josiah Woodward (London, 1698); see also An Address from the London Society for the Suppression of Vice (London, 1803); An Account of the Societies for Reformation of Manners in London and Westminster and Other Parts of the Kingdom, Anon. (London, 1699); An Account of the Progress of the Reformation of Manners in England, etc., Anon., 12th edition (London, 1704); The Poor Man's Plea in Relation to all the Declarations, Acts of Parliament, etc., which have been made or published for a Reformation of Manners and Suppressing Immorality in the Nation, by Daniel de Foe (London, 1698); Wilson's Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel de Foe (1830), i. pp. 301-302.

1

1 Quoted, in relation to the societies of 1690-1710, in An Address from the London Society for the Suppression of Vice (London, 1803),