against "continuing drinking" or "tippling" were in full force, and the Justices were expressly required to see that the victuallers whom they licensed prevented any such "continuing drinking, and maintained good order in their houses." Yet we do not hear of any withdrawal of licences for misconduct, or the suppression of unnecessary drinking places. From 1701 onward, as we have seen, the law, though subject to large exceptions, required the ordinary "dram-shops" and " punchhouses" to be licensed, and the indiscriminate retailing of spirits was plainly illegal; but there is no indication in Hogarth's "Gin Lane" of any interference by the Justices or the constables.1 To induce the vendors of spirituous liquors to take out a licence was, no doubt, in the contemporary anarchy, a difficult and unpleasant task. 1 Yet even the Middlesex Justices could be particular enough if they chose. "One of the curious sights of the year 1717," writes Dr. Doran, was the assembling by summons of a thousand Middlesex tavern-keepers in front of Hicks' Hall, where announcement was made to them that in future no licence would be granted save to those who had taken the oath of allegiance before the Justices of the various parishes" (London in Jacobite Times, by Dr. Doran, 1877, vol. i. p. 288). So in 1745, a critical year, we read that the magistrates for the division of St. George's, Hanover Square, in petty sessions, resolved "that for the future no persons that are Roman Catholics, or others who shall refuse to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, be admitted to have licences in this parish. That all persons that shall hereafter apply for new licences do first take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and repeat the declaration against transubstantiation (MS. Minutes, Petty Sessions, St. George's, Hanover Square (Middlesex), 5th October 1745). "When a Justice of the Peace," we are told, "meets with inferior officers of courage and intrepidity, and sets about a reformation of the unlicensed houses, he finds himself surrounded with numbers of pettifogging attorneys and solicitors who watch his steps, and if there happens to be the least flaw in the method of drawing up and managing the several proceedings, he finds himself obliged to attend a certiorari in the King's Bench, where, failing in some circumstance, the whole proceedings are quashed, and the magistrate, who has been at great expense, has the mortification to see the impudent fellow triumph over him and increase his iniquitous trade."1 The committee of Middlesex magistrates which reported to Quarter Sessions in 1736, may well have been “firmly persuaded that there has been great negligence and remissness in several of the officers in this occasion," seeing that they discovered that nearly half the constables whom they employed were themselves retailers of spirituous liquors. "While all other tradesmen endeavour to get excused from serving the office of constable, the dealers in Geneva court the office, whence they infer that the constables find their account in encour 1 Distilled Liquors the Bane of the Nation (1736), p. viii. (p. 180 of Add. MSS. 27825). aging the commission of vices and crimes." The net result was that in 1736 this committee reported the existence, not only of almost innumerable cases in which spirits were clandestinely sold in cellars, garrets, and backyards, but, in the metropolitan parishes alone (excluding the city of London and Southwark), of no fewer than 2105 open and regular retailers who kept dram-shops without being licensed, as compared with 4939 holders of licences; and that these had formed a common fund to defend themselves against the prosecutions which the Justices were afraid to institute. The licensing powers of the Justices, as well as the laws of Parliament, were, in fact, simply set at defiance. In this dilemma Parliament seems to have found no alternative to the policy of throwing all responsibility upon the Justices of the Peace. The ten years which succeeded the main Act of 1743 witnessed a series of minor reforms, all directed towards making more effective the Justices' authority. Licences were to be granted only at the annual "Brewster Sessions," specially summoned for the purpose, and at no other time;1 the procedure as to the transfer of licensed houses was systematically regulated; 126 George II. c. 31. 2 26 George II. c. 31 and 29 George II. c. 12. 2 2 3 4 1 no Justice who was himself a brewer or distiller could take part in granting a licence; the fee of the Justice's clerk was expressly restricted to half a crown, whilst the Government stamp was raised to a guinea. No licence was to be granted to any person but the keeper of a house of public refreshment for that house only; and the licensee was not allowed to carry on the trade of grocer or chandler, or that of a distiller, or to keep a "brandy shop."5 As some guarantee that the premises were of sufficient size, they had (if spirits were to be sold as well as beer) to be rated to the poor rate, and in London to be of at least £12 rental or £10 ratable value." The licensee had not only to enter into his own recognisances for good behaviour, but had also to furnish two sureties for the same." Moreover, no new licence was to be granted outside London and the corporate towns, except on the certificate of the incumbent and churchwardens of the parish, or of three or four substantial householders therein, that the applicant was "of good fame and sober life and conversation." 8 1 26 George II. c. 31 c. 13, sec. 11. 2 24 George II. c. 40. 17 George II. c. 17, c. 19. 3 29 George II. c. 12. 5 17 George II. c. 17, c. 19. 6 24 George II. c. 40; 26 George II. c. 13. 8 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 16. ง 1 Finally, in order to strengthen the hands of the Justices, the procedure relating to their proceeding against defaulting publicans was simplified and defined; they were protected against writs of certiorari and actions for damages, and they were given summary powers of search and discovery. From 1753 onward, at any rate, the Justices had in their uncontrolled discretion to grant or refuse a licence, and in the crushing penalties against unlicensed sellers, an almost unlimited power of confining the drink traffic within legitimate bounds. 2 3 During the decades immediately following the legislation of 1743-53, the Justices seem to 1 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 7, 8; 28 George II. c. 19. 2 24 George II. c. 40, and 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 9. 3 Trustworthy statistics of the consumption of spirits cannot be given, owing to the varying prevalence of illicit distilling, and the uncertainty as to the amount smuggled from other countries. For the first half of the eighteenth century the statistics of the amount of British spirits charged with duty seem to have, at any rate, some significance. The records begin in 1684, when the total was only 527,492 gallons, and it did not reach a million until 1696. It then rose rapidly to 2,200,721 in 1710, 3,379,695 in 1722, 4,612,275 in 1727, and 6,074,562 in 1734, the known production being thus at the latter date about one gallon per head of the estimated population of England. The first Gin Act of 1729-33 effected no reduction at all. The second, of 1736-43, caused the amount to fall off for the first three years only, the increase for the last four years of its operation being at a greater rate than before. This was again checked by the Acts of 1751 and 1753, when the total amount fell from 7,049,822 gallons in 1751 to only 4,483,341 in 1752, and to 1,849,370 in 1758 (see the tables in First Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 1857, Appendix, No. 19). |