The Express.
London, England, 1863-11-07 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 7, 1863.

would be better than making men immorel by
Act of Parliament, which hoe beast, we believe,
the tendency of many a statute. The promotion
and protection of social morality has always been
considered one of the duties of the legislator. The
danger he has really to guard against on this ground
is the enactment of measures which, under the ap-
pearance of guarding morals, really destroy them
by producing a hollow outward conformity, toge-
ther with an immense increase of hypocrisy and
secret vice.

The Permissive-Prohibition Bill discussed by
Mr. Bcxvox appears to ua to start from a wrong
principle. It is proposed to pass an Act according
to which, when a certain proportion of the inha-
bitants of a pariah or municipality shall agree to
that effect, the sale of beer, wine, and spirits in
that parish or municipality shall thereby be made
unlawful. No such power ought to be given to
a local majority. If the liquor traffic is of itself
so injurious to morality that its suppression by
law is justifiable in one place, it must be so for
the whole kingdom, and the Imperial Legislature
ought to take the responsibility of roAking a general
prohibitory law. After the public opinion of the
country has sanctioned and Parliament has estab-
lished a principle of legislation, local knowledge and
judgment may safely be left to apply it ; but it is
a wholly different thing to make the will of a smell
population the law of a district on a matter which
affects the personal rights of every inhabitant. In
this instance, supposing, for the convenience of the
argument, that the canoe of public morality is the
cause of prohibitory legislation, it would be placing
that cause at an immense disadvantage to make one
portion of a local population the legislators for the
other on a matter which so nearly touches individual
convenience. On the first attempt to introduce such
a law into our towns we should have contests at-
tended with the bitterest clams feeling and with an
evocation of the foulest elements of social disorder.

The friends of the Permissive-Prohibitory Bill
do not act fairly either to the public or to them-
selves when they seek to decry the sale of wine,
beer, and spirits as that of intoxicating drinks.
If they were merely that—simply instruments
of vice—the work of those ardent reformers would
be soon and easily accomplished. Nobody would
be found to stand up for the right of men to make
beasts of themselves. But the public, out of its own
experience, gives those articles • milder character,
and as long as a large body of exemplary people em-
ploy them, in the belief that they serve • whole-
some physiological purpose, the friends of temper-
ance will do well to remember that fact. No doubt
many erroneous notions on this subject still linger
in the public mind, and to remove these is • work
in which oar total abstainers may usefully employ
themselves. They have already done good service
in this respect. The intelligent classes of this
country have got rid of much error on this subject,
and do not set so much store by wine and beer as
they did, while spirits are more and more going out
of use. The notion that alcohol economises waste
and aids nutrition, by diminishing both the pro-
&let and the process of metamorphosis in the
tissues, is falling into discredit, and the same may
be said of the doctrine that alcohol was necessaii
to keep up " combustion" in the system. In due
time all the science the abstainers can teach will
descend to the multitude, and become common
property. But in the meanwhile they must take
account of the prevalent belief, which those who
hold it refer to experience, that in some way or',
other, which it may be left to physiologists to ex-
plain, wine and beer do sustain the system under
the wear-and-tear of life. Broad abstract propo-
sitions on this subject make little i-npression on
the public. It may be true, as men of scene
tell us, that even a moderate daily use of alcohol
diminishes the ability of the body to resist ex-
tremes of temperature, that it is • source of
nutritional derangement, and that it impairs the
capacity for muscular exertion. It is certainly
remarkable that the chamois hunter and the ma-
thematician equally avoid it when they want to
draw most largely on their several faculties. And
yet the popular belief may have solid grounds.
We must take the conditions of existence as we
find them made for us, and, in point of fact, very
few of us are so fortunate as to be permitted to
live as nature meant. We cannot, if we would,
forget that we are the creatures of artificial neces-
sities. Physicians of experience remark how 'ew
healthy teetotallers are to be met with in our
ordinary inhabitants of cities. The excessive
mental and bodily toil and insufficient exercise
which are the lot of thousands of dwellers in towns,
bring on fatigue, depression, and weakness, which
make a moderate stimulus far from superfluous. Of
course it may be said that oocupetions which could
only be carried on under these conditions would not
be fit for anybody. Bet the remark would have
no practical value. As long as people believe that
wine and beer impart comfott and energy, and
counteract fatigue, the conviction of their utility will
give an appearance of stronginjustice totheattempta
of any set of persons to place these articles out
of reach by procuring the interdiction of theirsale.
It is contrary to the recognised maxims of our legis-
lation, and against reason and common sense, to
prohibit the moderate use of a good thing be-
cause some abuse it. Mr. BUXTON expressed in a
rough general way the feelings with which such
legislation would be universally regarded :—" For
" &urn and Baows to say to me, you shall have
" no more porter for fear we should get drunk, or
" for fear I may get drunk, is • trespass on my
" freedom. It is • wrong done to my natural
" independence. It would be an intervention in
"my private affairs that would be ur bearable to
"an Englishman. If they cannot keep themselves
" from getting drunk, why let them take the
" pledge. I shall reepsct them 'or that." Se-
riously, we hope that the efforts of our temperance
reformers will take some more rational direction
than an agitation for • Permissive-Prohibitory Bill.

gbc Court.

WINDSOR CIARTLE. Nov. 6.
Princess Helena and Princesa Louise, attended
by Lady Caroline Barrington and Colonel H. F. Ponsonby,
went to London yesterday evening sad honoured the per.
tormanee at the Adelphi Theatre with their presence.
Her Majesty the Queen drove out in the afternoon.

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