The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-29 00:00:00

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC

HOUSES.

AFTER inquiries which have extended over two
sessions, and in the course of which witnesses in all
ranks of life were examined, the committee on
public-houses has made its report—an elaborate
document, extending over thirty-four folio pages, and
embodying the substance of the most material
evidence taken. The committee deal in the first
instance with the licensing system—a complicated
and anomalous series of regulations, some of which
are habitually violated, while others serve no pur-
pose except that of annoyance both to dealers and to
the public. Such are the restrictions imposed on
wholesale dealers, for which no cause whatever can
be shown; which encourage informers, and, by their
frequent evasion, accustom honest men to regard
brea-hes of law as venial. These restrictions it is
accordingly proposed to abolish. Beerhouses, it is
stated, have proved a failure. They were " estab-
" lished under the belief that they would give the
" public their beer cheap and pure, would dissociate
" beer-drinking from drunkenness," and lead to the
establishment of a less disorderly class of refresh
ment houses than those previously existing. These
results have not followed. Beershops are notoriously
the haunts of bad characters ; the article sold therein
is neither cheap nor good; adulteration is habitually
practised, and that to a frightful extent. " Most
" publicans," says one witness, a publican himself,
" have a way of doing something to their beer "
to increase the quantity or conceal the inferior
quality. One person habitually mixes his beer with
seventy per cent. of water; and similar frauds are
practised in the case of spirits. Nor are these
a lulterations harmless. Vitriol, cocculus indicus,
and a variety of substances more or less deleterious
are habitually consumed by the frequenters of beer-

..,c• utsUll.lifilly consumes by tne treguenters of oeer-
shops. For this evil no legal remedy exists.
ofience, if it can he detected, is punishable ; Tbhuet
detection becomes almost impossible, from the ab- consideration by any timid apprehensions suggested
by the fear of innovation. Last night's Gazette contains the official despatch
from Admiral Dundas announaing the destruction of
But changes in national worship can never be the Russian batteries at the Sulina mouth of the
Bence of any fixed standard of strength, while the effected profitably unless when supported by the Danube, and the melancholy death of Captain
enormous profits thus illegally made cover the wishes and sympathies of the worshippers at large. Parker.
risk of punishment. Neither does it appear that, In any such changes, it would be necessary to avoid A permanent council of war has been appointed
even where the guilt of the seller is clearly proved, any appearance of concession to the too worldly at Turin.
the ultimate penalty of withdrawing the licence is spirit of the age, and, if duties be relaxed as too The prorogation of Parliament will, we have
.often put in force. Magistrates connive at—at onerous in one direction, it would be wise to augment reason to believe, take place in the third week in
least, neglect to notice—offences which they cannot them in smother. The report in Convocation ad- Augu'.t, most probably on the 15th of that month,
effectually put down. Where a bad practice is vacates " the general and systematic co-operation of the annual Ministerial whitebait dinner, which pre-
nni_ versal, severe proceedings against individuals " the laity in works of Christian charity, in visiting, cedes the termination of the session, being given es
detected in it wear an appearance of partiality, if not " exhorting, and teaching, dec. dec." But not even Saturday, the 12th proximo, at Greenwich.—Globe.
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