But the use of those things which are simply
hurtful, hurtful in their own nature, and in every degree, is to be
prohibited. None, my lords, ever heard in any nation of a tax upon
theft or adultery, because a tax implies a license granted for the use
of that which is taxed, to all who shall be willing to pay it.

Drunkenness, my lords, is universally and in all circumstances an
evil, and, therefore, ought not to be taxed, but punished; and the
means of it not to be made easy by a slight impost, which none can
feel, but to be removed out of the reach of the people, and secured by
the heaviest taxes, levied with the utmost rigour. I hope those to
whose care the religion of the nation is particularly consigned, will
unanimously join with me in maintaining the necessity, not of taxing
vice, but suppressing it; and unite for the rejection of a bill, by
which the future as well as present happiness of thousands must be
destroyed.

Lord LONSDALE spoke as follows:--My lords, the bill now before us,
has, from its first appearance in the other house, seemed to me of
such importance as to deserve the greatest attention, and to demand
the most diligent inquiry; and I have, therefore, considered it with
uncommon care, and pursued all those inquiries from which I could
expect any assistance for discovering its tendency and its
consequences, with the nicest and most anxious vigilance.

That my attention and diligence may not wholly terminate in the
gratification of idle and useless curiosity, it is proper to inform
your lordships of their result; by which I hope to convince you, as I
am myself convinced, that this bill cannot become a law, without
endangering the lives of thousands, without dispersing diseases over
the nation, or without multiplying crimes beyond the possibility of
restraint or punishment; that it will fill the land with confusion for
a time, by infatuating the people, and afterwards lay it desolate by
destroying them.

All my inquiries, my lords, have had one constant and uniform Effect.
On what side soever I have turned my speculations, I have found new
arguments against this bill, and have discovered new mischiefs
comprised in it; mischiefs which, however some may endeavour to
overlook them, and others to despise them, will be found in a short
time too general to be concealed, and too formidable to be neglected.

The first consideration, in which the necessity of deliberating on
this bill engaged me, related