slature might have been in enabling the
poor to procure a good and cheap article more easily, to be drunk on
or off the premises, the thing has not answered the end, and no one
can deny, who will take the trouble to visit such places in different
counties, that the _Act_ has been a miserable failure, and has been
the fruitful source of crime and immorality. What a lesson is this for
speculative, short sighted legislators?

Another measure should then be adopted, I would say--destroy the
facility of spirit-drinking, by laying on a heavy duty. It is in vain
that interested sophistry would plead its benefits in particular
cases--such, for instance, as the ludicrous plea of the needfulness
of drams for market-women on wet and frosty mornings.[A] Set these
specious benefits against the dreadful results to men's health and
pockets, from the present low price of spirits, and their consequent
enormous consumption; and then let common sense and honesty deliver
its judgment.

I have spoken thus candidly and at length upon the subject in the
present chapter, though somewhat out of place, because my feelings
would not allow me to be less plain or more brief, or to postpone
the matter to "a more convenient season." Perhaps in talking of
legislative alterations I have been wandering upon forbidden ground;
if so, in returning to my proper path, I will comfort myself with this
thought:--the progress of improvement, however slow, is sure, and it
is certainly advancing in this country; I require no other assurance
than the establishment of Infant Schools and Mechanic's.

[Footnote A: Some conception of the fearful height which drunkenness
has attained, may be gathered from the fact, that in 1829, the
quantity of distilled spirits on which the duty was paid in the three
kingdoms, amounted to 23,000,000 of gallons. To form a due estimate,
however, of the actual consumption, an immense quantity must be added,
obtained by smuggling. Of the rum imported for home consumption,
allowing for that re-exported, the quantity was 5,000,000 of gallons.
Of brandy and other articles imported, 1,500,000 gallons; making a
total, with the omission of all on which the duty was evaded, of
30,000,000 of gallons of ardent spirits consumed in the year.
Five millions of revenue grew out of this, but it cost the people
15,000,000_l_. sterling, a which would have paid half-a-year's
interest of the national debt.]

"No person," says Sir Astley Cooper "has grea